Lansdown reveals his sadness at sacking Johnson
BRISTOL City owner Steve Lansdown has reiterated the club are looking for a manager to take them into the Premier League “as soon as we can” after sacking Lee Johnson.
The Robins were the only Championship side to have lost every game since the season restarted following their 1-0 defeat to Cardiff City on Saturday.
That run appears to have pushed them out of contention for the playoffs and brought an end to Johnson’s reign after over four years in charge.
With Bristol City set for another season in the Championship after falling away following a strong start,
Lansdown has explained the club are seeking a candidate that can take them to the next level and earn promotion to the Premier League.
“It’s the usual scene, although I haven’t been in it for a while, we’ve got a lot of good applicants,” Lansdown, pictured, told talkSPORT.
“Jon Lansdown and Mark Ashton are sifting through those at the moment and drawing up a shortlist.
“We have a particular type of person we want to come in, there’s been a lot of good work here by Lee, we don’t want to lose that, someone has to come in and build on that.
“The aim is to get us into the Premier League as soon as we can.” “I’m very sad, as much as he is an employee of myself, I’ve known him a long, long time as a player here and the last four-and-a-half years as a manager,” he explained, on the decision to part company with Johnson. “We worked very closely together, we spent a lot of time together and it’s difficult when these situations arise. We’re in a situation where Lee has done an awful lot of good work at the club in developing the pathway from the academy and fine-tuning our recruitment process.
“When it comes to the crunch, he hasn’t got us over the line and we felt it was time to make the move, to make a change for someone who can help us make that next step.
“We discussed it before, we felt if we beat Cardiff we would have still had a chance at making that sixth place in the play-offs but we lost and that put us out of contention.
“We felt if we were going to make a change we should start now, bring a breath of fresh air into the club, everyone was on a downer at that point and anybody coming in gets plenty of time for the new season.”