Football Dean and his coaching staff have been a breath of fresh air, says Lansdown
Dean knows the club very well, knows the players very well and Paul and Keith have brought in a new coaching approach to the club and everybody is enjoying it
STEVE Lansdown has, unsurprisingly and understandably, labelled Bristol City’s start to the season under Dean Holden as a job well done as the club’s controversial decision to appoint the 41-year-old is gradually being vindicated.
Holden’s appointment and the length of the process to install a new permanent head coach was widely criticised by the fanbase with some even choosing to drape protest banners outside of Ashton Gate in the days building up to the announcement.
However, four weeks into the league season, Holden’s appointment appears inspired with the head coach having led the Robins to the top of the Championship with four wins from four matches and eradicating any sense of bad feeling around the club.
Speaking before Saturday’s 2-1 win at Nottingham Forest, Lansdown repeated a phrase he was criticised for using in an interview with TalkSPORT in July by stating Holden plus assistants Keith Downing and Paul Simpson have been a, “breath of fresh air”.
“Top of the league, you can’t ask for more than that,” Lansdown told Bristol Sport TV from his home in Guernsey.
“It’s early days but a good start and I’m very pleased for Dean and the team, with Paul and Keith coming in, because they were under quite a bit of pressure from, let’s say, the bad press they got from the fact they weren’t necessarily the first choices from the fans’ perspective.
“But I think they’ve proved people wrong in the short term they’ve been there and people have got confidence in them, we’re looking very well-organised on the pitch and we’re top of the league, so we’ll take that at the moment.
“Both Paul Simpson and Keith Downing are very experienced in their field and Dean was absolutely right in bringing them in to support him.
“Dean knows the club very well, knows the players very well and Paul and Keith have brought in a new coaching approach to the club and everybody is enjoying it.
“It’s a breath of fresh air, in that regard, and it is working. From a distance, and that’s all I can say at the moment, we’re keeping things simple and that’s paying off.
“I think we can look forward with optimism. It’s a bit of a shame the international break is coming up.”
City’s rise to the summit of the Championship has been built on some smart recruitment in the summer transfer window with five players added - Joe Williams, Alfie Mawson, Chris Martin, Chris Brunt and Steven Sessegnon - for minimal expenditure.
Williams is yet to play due to a thigh injury, while Sessegnon and Brunt’s appearances have largely been reserved for the Carabao Cup but centre-back Mawson and striker Martin have made significant impacts in the first XI.
“The experience of Chris Martin and Chris Brunt coming in, and Alfie Mawson at the back as well,” Lansdown added.
“The squad is interesting and we’ve got that balance of what we’ve always wanted at Bristol City; experience on the pitch, a youthful squad in general and a lot of players who have come up through our academy and who we’ve recruited at a young age. It’s got that nice feel to it and everyone is playing their part.”
That youthful squad was further emphasised last week as goalkeeper Max O’Leary and defenders Zak Vyner and Taylor Moore all committed to new long-term deals at Ashton Gate to continue their development.
O’Leary and Vyner have been in the club’s academy since their midteens, while Moore was brought to BS3 from French club Lens when he was 19.
After a series of loan spells, the trio are now firmly established in Holden’s squad displaying the much-promoted pathway between academy and first-team which, at times, towards the end of Lee Johnson’s reign looked to have stalled.
“That’s important to us, it shows our confidence in them and our system but also it gives them the security to really concentrate on their football and developing their game for the benefit of themselves and for the football club,” said Lansdown.
“We’re protecting our future
while looking to perform at the highest level we can at this point in time. We have to get ourselves into a position where the under-23s are going to step into the first team when there’s an injury or somebody moves on, because that’s the whole purpose of what we’re trying to build - that succession planning, from the young age of the academy through to the first team.
“We’ve got a good pathway there, fair play to Lee Johnson when he was here, he helped develop it, but we need to progress that and see the likes of Zak, Taylor and Max come on board for the next three years just shows that continuity that we’ve got. It’s encouraging the investment we’re making in the academy is paying off.”