City look to put Watford horror show behind them

DEAN Holden knows Bristol City face a defining day in their season, and possibly his own managerial career, when they host promotion-chasing Reading at Ashton Gate tonight.

The Robins have dropped to 13th in the Championship table on the back of four successive defeats, and nothing was more humiliating than Saturday’s 6-0 thumping at Watford.

In the aftermath of that defeat at Vicarage Road, Holden spoke of his determination to get City back on track, with the play-off places still only seven points away.

“I won’t find it difficult to motivate myself, to go again,” he said. “I’ve done it all my life. I’ve asked the players the same question and we’ll see on Tuesday night, won’t we?

“It’s easy for me to sit here and say there’ll be a response. These press conferences, you’ve got to do them as a coach, but talk’s cheap. It’s about how we physically respond when we go over that line.

“We win together and we lose together, we’ve done that all season. Look, it’s horrible (the Watford game).

“We started poorly, we conceded in the first couple of minutes against a top team who were at their top level.

“To concede goals as quickly as we did, through lapses of concentration, it’s difficult to pick up. It’s a horrible feeling and it’s a day that will stay with the players for their whole career, and for all of us.

“There’s two things that can happen now. You can either become a victim - and this is what I’ve said to the players, I’ve been really honest - you can start to blame others, you can go within yourselves, you can start to look for excuses. Or you can look yourself in the mirror and think ‘where am I going in my career? What do I really want? How high do I really want to go?’

“This sort of feeling, and we’ve had a couple of bad moments recently. This is one of those that you can look back and think this is a time that we found something within ourselves to respond. That’s up to us as a group of players and staff to do that.”

Reading stand fifth in the table, but are in a bit of a slump themselves after home defeats by Brentford (3-1) and Millwall (2-1) in the past week.

Reading, like City, have been badly hit by injuries of late. Defenders Michael Morrison and Liam Moore, midfielder John Swift and strikers Yakou Meitie and George Puskas are all expected to miss tonight’s game.