Johnson sacked by Robins after Cardiff failure
LEE JOHNSON was axed as Bristol City head coach after a 1- 0 defeat to Cardiff, with Danny Ward scoring five minutes from time.
The decision to part company with Johnson after four years comes following a run of nine games without a win and four straight defeats following the Championship’ s resumption.
A statement read: “There have been some special moments over those years and Lee has played a significant part.
“However, success in football is judged by results and league position and the board believes that a change of management is needed now for Bristol City.”
First-team coach Dean Holden will take over immediately in a caretaker capacity.
Nottingham Forest assistant coach Bruno Baltazar described the way his team let two points slip away as “unacceptable” after 10- man Derby scored a dramatic stoppage- time equaliser in a 1-1 draw.
Joe Lolley’s 10th goal of the season put Forest head after 12 minutes.
MartynW ag horn was sent off late on for Derby, but Chris Martin bundled home a leveller in the seventh minute of added time.
“It’s very frustrating,” said B al tazar.“It’ s unacceptable that we lost these two points at this stage of the game and we need to work on this really quickly.”
Said Benrahma grabbed a hat-trick as Brentford kept up their bid for automatic promotion with a 3-0 win over crisis club Wigan.
Benrahma’s sparkling treble ensured the Bees are still breathing down the necks of the top two, having moved to within two points of secondplaced West Brom.
“I have to praise him for his work ethic,” said Bees boss Thomas Frank. “He worked extremely hard. He has been good, he needs to keep it up.
Yakou Meite scored four goals, including a first- half hat- trick, as Reading heaped further pressure on Luton with a 5- 0 win at Kenilworth Road.
The striker had his treble after just 35 minutes as the Royals ran riot, with bottom side Town collapsing in the face of the onslaught. George Puscas was also on target for the visitors.
Stoke climbed out of the drop zone after a 4-0 win over Barnsley.
Strikers Sam Vokes and Tyrese Campbell fired the hosts 2- 0 up inside the first 10 minutes.
Campbell gave City a commanding cushion in the 38th minute and sub Tom Ince completed the scoring late on.
Josh Onomah struck deep into added time to keep Fulham’s automatic promotion hopes alive with a 1- 0 win over Birmingham.