That was an unexpected extra Christmas present! The Hawthorns hasn’t always been a happy hunting ground for Bristol City, and despite the excellent win against Middlesbrough in our last game, I wasn’t expecting too much as we made the relatively short trip up the M5 on Boxing Day.
With games coming thick and fast over the festive period, Gerhard Struber opted to make the one change with Neto Borges coming in for Sinclair Armstrong as part of a switch to a 3-4-2-1 formation.
There was no Fally Mayulu or Harry Cornick on the bench. Fally was ruled out with an injury, which is likely to see him miss the next four to six weeks, while Harry is suspended, having picked up a three-match ban following the touchline altercation with Millwall at Ashton Gate recently.
It’s interesting timing for both! The general expectation was that both would be leaving the club in the January transfer window. Maybe that is why Cornick’s suspension is the only known result of that Millwall fracas: a three-match suspension that coincides with the Christmas run of games. With the January transfer window then open, it would allow Harry to join another club.
Fally’s injury, though, makes a January transfer a little more complicated, with him likely to be sidelined for the entire window. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.
Talking of the January transfer window, Gerhard Struber confirmed in his post-match interviews that we are “super close” to signing midfielder Sam Morsy. Morsy, who captained Ipswich as they won promotion to both the Championship and the Premier League before making the switch to Kuwait SC in the Middle East in the summer, is a free agent, and Struber said that the midfielder may be seen in red and white in “the next few days.”
Struber went on to say about Morsy, “He’s a player with a little bit of a different face, and he can be, of course, on the pitch, for us, super important. But also, next to Knighty, next to Rob Dickie, next to Zak Vyner, he can be also in the dressing room for us an important player.”
I personally think it’s a great signing to bring that experience into the squad. Brian Tinnion talked recently about a couple of loan signings, and I would expect one or two more incomings. There is a lot of noise around George Earthy returning to BS3 and potentially Sam Bell being recalled from Wycombe Wanderers, with Cornick making the move to Adams Park. Whether any of that materialises, we will have to wait and see. I still think that the key position we need to strengthen is in the goalscoring department.
Last week, we announced our annual accounts and a pre-tax loss of £18.6m, an increase of £15.3m, compared to the pre-tax loss of £3.3m in the year ending 30th June 2025. This was driven by the lower profit on the transfer of players.
It will mean that we don’t have a lot of wiggle room in January, but I truly hope that owner Steve Lansdown recognises the tremendous work that Struber and his coaching team are doing and that he backs the head coach with the signings needed. Such signings that could potentially see us reach the end-of-season play-offs, if not automatic promotion. Never has there been a time to back the head coach as there is now.
Of course, there may be other outgoings, and with the contract situations of Anis Mehmeti, Zak Vyner, Mark Sykes, and Max O’Leary not yet resolved, I would expect bids for some, if not all, of them.
What does the club do if we receive bids for Anis and Zak in particular? If both are showing no intention of signing new deals, do we have to accept any offer that comes in? We turned down a reported £5million for Zak from Wrexham in the summer, and you would expect them and others to come sniffing again.
Both are, in my opinion, crucial to this Struber side. Replacing the seven goals and six assists from Anis won’t be easy. Do we have to be prepared and take the hit and keep both here until the end of their contracts? It’s not an easy decision. Anis still causes a degree of frustration within some of the fanbase, but there is no denying he has that X-factor, and his goal yesterday was of all his own doing.
Anis’ early goal set the foundation for the victory against the Baggies on Boxing Day, but we also had Max O’Leary to thank for keeping that lead in place before we extended it through Ross McCrorie.
We have been fortunate to see an excellent loan signing in Radek Vitek between the sticks for most of the season, but following Radek’s knee injury, Max was recalled, and he has played his part in two wins and six points. We saw on Friday just what we expect from Max: an excellent reflex shot stopper, but not a goalkeeper who always commands his area. Yes, there were moments against West Brom that had me on the edge of my seat when balls came into the box, but Max did claim a couple of high crosses into the box and did try and come on a couple of occasions.
The mental match fitness for any player, but especially for a goalkeeper, and the concentration levels needed, can only come with games, and I think Max will get better the more games that he plays. I have seen some blaming Max for Ousmane Diakite’s goal, and yes, I think he should have come for the corner, but I also think that George Tanner had to defend it better.
McCrorie was excellent yesterday. He was our 3 Peaps in A Podcast Man of the Match, and his winning goal was deserving of his work rate and drive during the game. It was a great flowing move. Borges played a good pass into Scott Twine, who controlled the ball before rolling it into the path of the marauding McCrorie, who smashed it into the net. It was a move very similar to the popular Scots’ goal in the opening game of the season away at Sheffield United.
Ross needs to keep this same level and find the consistency for the second half of the season. If he does and the team continue to do well, he will surely find himself in Steve Clarke’s Scotland squad and on the plane for the World Cup in the summer.
Look, the second half was a battle, and the substitutes didn’t have the impact that Struber would have hoped. We had to defend manfully, but also, we didn’t help ourselves with some sloppy passing, ill-thought-out runs up front, and a failure to keep the ball. Armstrong did not hit the levels that he has recently, and having conceded late on, we were indebted to the frame of the goal with the last action. However, our first-half performance was deserving of all three points, and we go on to Monday night and an away fixture at The Den.
This one could be a bit spicy after what happened at the end of the recent home game, and we need to stay disciplined. A win would be massive.
Our 3 Peaps in A Podcast player ratings were: Max O’Leary 7.5, Ross McCrorie 7.5 *MotM, Rob Dickie 7.0, Zak Vyner 7.0, Cameron Pring 7.0, Neto Borges 7.0, Adam Randell 7.0, Jason Knight 7.0, Scott Twine 7.0, Anis Mehmeti 7.0, and Emil Riis 5.5.
For the substitutes, who must play a minimum of 20 minutes (including injury time) for a rating, we went with: Rob Atkinson 6.0, Yu Hirakawa 6.0, George Tanner 6.0, and Sinclair Armstrong 5.0. A game average player rating of 6.63, resulting in a season-to-date average of 6.30.
For head coach Gerhard Struber, it was 7.0, and we gave the game a rating of 7.0.
