Nigel, one year down the line…
Oh, I’m not interested in that.
I thought you’d say that but Mark Robins has just said that that’s a completely different Bristol City team to the one he played last season, is that a fair reflection of how you feel?
Oh okay. It’s probably not a good time to catch me on that one, especially not after a result like that one.
I work in a position where it’s about results and results aren’t great when you look at it but in terms of where we are compared to last year, that’s your call. I know where we are and where we’ve progressed. I think we should just talk about the performance because I thought the performance tonight was really good.
I know we’ve given a lot of goals away late on but tonight didn’t feel the same as other situations because there’s no anxiety there. We played really well and we were looking for the winner. We’re punished by another mistake in the middle of the pitch which has cost us.
It’s quite hard for young players to deal with those types of situations but that’s how they get better.
Did you see it as an individual error for the second goal?
Of course it was.
Could you have covered it better?
If you just generalise then nobody gets apportioned blame and you’ve got to apportion blame but there are always lots of different aspects about what could be slightly better and the bottom line is we’ve conceded two goals.
There’s a little bit of naivety in the first one but it’s my decision to select players who are young and out of position and I’m happy to do that. I think tonight the performance that we got was a very positive one. I’m not worried about the future for where this group of players are. We’ve got a lot of talent within the group and we’ve made a really strong progression in terms of our ability to play games.
What we haven’t done is the solved that final problem of winning those types of games. We’ve lost so many points late in games but tonight’s story is a bit different to that. It’s not because we’ve looked anxious.
I just told the players that we played against a side at the weekend that monked us when we played them earlier but they monked us because we were nervous and we showed a weakness that I don’t think is here now.
You look at it however you want. However you see it, you see it in whichever way but tonight in terms of performance it was really good.
It was chalk and cheese between this season and last season, there’s entertainment value with attacking football…
Well, entertainment is one thing. For me it’s not about entertainment, bah humbug!
I always say to the players it’s nice to play well and win but it is about winning and unfortunately we don’t win often enough. If we continue to work in the same way, we will get there.
Last season was a hard watch, this isn’t a hard watch…
Last season was a tough experience because there was a lot that needed to be sorted out. You make your own judgement on whether it has or hasn’t, that’s your opinion, I don’t have to sell any story to anybody.
I have a job to do and my job is to try and manage us through a situation which takes a bit of tenacity and a bit of patience too.
Nights like this are a learning curve for the younger players…
Learning curve? It’s easy to say it but they only learn if they show progression. Learning is about how you process information or an experience and whether you can then do things differently when a similar sort of experience occurs. That’s why I think it’s important for me to recognise that tonight what we didn’t do was lose the game because we showed anxiety, it wasn’t about that.
We got punished and I don’t want to take from Mark’s team who set up against us like I would set up against us. That is let you have the ball and counter-attack because we’ve not really been a possession side. I would do the same, let you have the ball and hit you on the break.
Their game plans worked really well but I would have expected them to be quite nervous in the second half because we were really at it.
How impressed are you with what Mark has done and how far they have come?
Mark is one of the most underrated managers that there is out there. I’ve come across him for years and years now.
When he was at Rotherham he did a great job there. He’s the type of manager who you don’t really recognise the types of job he’s done. For me him and someone like Darren Ferguson for instance, who have been around quite a long time and had lots of success themselves, relative success.
I don’t think people really understand what it is to manage with not a lot and manage under pressure. Coventry City has had a really tough period of time where they’ve lost their own home, they’ve been playing at other people’s grounds, they’ve been in a bit of a state and for them to be as competitive as they are is credit to them as a club and a lot on their management and staff.
I never judge managers by status because a lot of the top end managers don’t have to think about balancing books. They inherit the best players and then they add to it with even better players and the majority of managers who work out there have a different set of rules to work by.
The lads who are at the top end and go from one big job to another, they wouldn’t survive doing that type of job.
Alex Scott was playing slightly deeper, did he take on that Joe Williams role from Saturday?
The tactics were different tonight because we thought Mark might set up with a switch between one striker and two strikers up top and if they have one then they have two players playing just in behind.
It was an interesting game because they allowed us to have the ball out from the back pretty easily, they were sitting hoping to spring so for Alex he didn’t have to play in the same way Joe did because Boro are a lot more aggressive with how they play and they play a different shape.
Alex will play anywhere because he’s bright enough, he was great tonight.
Did you know those fans next to you because it looked like you were having a conversation?
No, I don’t know them. They’re sat there and they’ve always got something to say so I gave them something back.
Mark pointed out the desire of your team. After the Swansea game how impressed have you been with that aspect of your game?
The players are doing everything that they can to produce winning performances. That’s all I can say because I’ve said to you, one thing our punters can’t criticise us for is a lack of honesty because there’s a real honesty in the group and how we go about it.
We’ve made mistakes this season but doesn’t everybody? They’re having a go and we are making progress.
A result like tonight is a big hit because we didn’t deserve that but it’s what football is I’m afraid and that’s as much a part of putting the pieces together as anything. You’ve got to deal with disappointment in life and certainly as a footballer you’re going to get a smack round the face from time to time because things don’t happen in the way that you want to.
They’ll be fine because it’ll be the same group of players again at the weekend. There aren’t going to be many changes. People want to have an opinion on how big squads are, I look at it and think we’ve got what we’ve got at the moment, when players come back they’ll have to play well to get in the team because the team’s playing alright.
Whether we win enough games or not is a different story. Nobody is going to find it easy to get back into the group at the minute. It’s what it is. The youngsters are gaining some tough experiences but some very valuable experiences, it’s whether they process it well and that’ our job as manager and coaches to help them through that because what I don’t want to do is, players know when they’ve made mistakes.
You don’t need to hammer home so hard just because it makes you feel better. It’s about them being able to improve based on them experiencing either good things or bad things.
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