Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Bentley calls for strong finish to the campaign
DAN Bentley insists Bristol City must demonstrate a hunger to impress during the final three games of the Championship campaign.
With second-tier football all-but mathematically ensured at Ashton Gate next season, the Robins’ season is in danger of completely fizzling out, but goalkeeper Bentley is keen to finish the season off positively.
City host Luton tomorrow with both sides sat firmly in mid-table.
Bentley told the official Bristol City website: “I don’t think we can rely on defeats and disappointment to fire us up. We need to be fired up for every game, categorically.
“There’s no excuse for a lack of motivation or belief because we know we have got the quality and, personally, no matter the game or circumstance we should be fighting for every inch and point available.
“That can’t come from motivation of a loss because we’re angry, it needs to be a given that we go into games with the motivation to win, and as a minimum to match the motivation of the opponent. If you don’t want a game more than the opponent, then you will lose and we’ve seen that far too many times.
“We want to remain positive; we want to finish the season strongly.
“I think we need to go in with more of a hunger to succeed and finish strongly because it would be easy now to let the season peter out into a bit of a damp squib and rely on other teams to drop points.
“The negativity surrounding us ending the season poorly will then carry on and we’ve had far too much negativity surrounding our recent results, which is frustrating. None of us want to be associated with losing all the time. It becomes a habit and it’s not one I want to get into.”
■ Tottenham striker Harry Kane is in a race to be fit for tomorrow’s Carabao Cup final with Manchester City after he missed training again yesterday morning.
Kane suffered another ankle injury late on in the 2-2 draw at Everton last Friday and missed Wednesday’s win over Southampton. Interim boss Ryan Mason does not know whether Kane will play at Wembley.