Football Performances need to improve, admits City CEO Gould
BRISTOL City remain very much committed to the Nigel Pearson project but Robins CEO Richard Gould accepted recent results have left everyone at the club, including the board, “frustrated” with the team performing below pre-season expectations.
City have lost five of their last six Championship fixtures and head into the third international break of the season 19th in the table and beginning to look downward with considerable concern.
Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Coventry City has proved the nadir of a troubling run in which all the progress shown throughout August and September has appeared to erode away.
With Pearson also taking a second leave of absence this season on Friday, due to illness, that has only grown the sense of uncertainty and frustration among the fanbase at the direction of the team.
“The whole club’s reaction is one of frustration,” Gould told the Bristool Post. “Our supporters’ frustration is felt throughout the club. Whether it’s the board, the players, the staff.
“I think frustration also because we’ve got ourselves into really good positions in games and then often come out the wrong end.
“Coventry is a great example of that frustration coming to a head: 1-0 up, 2-1 up, they go down to 10 men, trying to push forward.
“The results have not gone our way and we find ourselves at the wrong end of the table. So there is a real desire and will to make sure we can correct that.
“There’s no feeling of complacency, we know the league table accurately reflects the results that we’ve accumulated so far and performances need to improve.”
Pearson remains on a leave of absence with no specified date for his return, although it is being monitored daily to ensure that when he returns, he does so at the peak of health.
The 58-year-old contracted Covid-19 for a second time in October and last week at Birmingham accepted he wasn’t feeling particularly well but still undertook prematch media obligations on Thursday only for the club to confirm 24 hours later he wouldn’t be travelling to Coventry.
Social media was abuzz yesterday with unsubstantiated rumours that Pearson was set to step down as City manager but those claims are fundamentally untrue. Players trained at the Robins High Performance Centre yesterday, including a first appearance within the firstteam set-up for 18-year-old midfielder Dylan Kadji, under the watch of assistant manager Curtis Fleming.
“He’s not great at the moment,” Gould admitted of Pearson, without disclosing specific details for obvious reasons.
“He was unable to travel with the squad to Coventry. We know he suffered a second bout of Covid and that’s something where we want to get him back on track as quickly as possible.
“There is no defined timeframe (as to when he’s expected to return), it’s all going to be born by our judgement and the context of where we are. Clearly there will be a timeframe we need to work to but I’m not able to define that at this point.”
Pearson is in year one of a threeyear contract to turn Bristol City into consistent promotion challengers, with Gould admitting the level of investment and size of the first-team wage bill dictating they should be a regular play-off team.
That comes with the caveat of last season’s struggles under Dean Holden and then Pearson and the feeling that 2021-22 will allow for a slight reset and more modest targets, albeit with a desire to be in a notably higher position than the one they now occupy.
When asked if the club still retain their trust in the ‘Pearson project,’ Gould replied an emphatic “yes”, insisting early-season improvements in August and September show there are foundations for optimism, even if results throughout autumn have been poor.
There is also an understanding injuries to key players Nathan Baker and Matty James, coupled with Pearson’s health are all mitigating factors for what they hope and believe will be a short and temporary decline.
“I think there have been really significant improvements in terms of fitness, attitude among the players; Nigel and his team, in Dave Rennie - we’ve seen the progress whether that’s in data or the application on the pitch,” said Gould.
“You can see, certainly in the first seven to eight games we have been much better and competing much more strongly than previously, the last five to six games have been much more difficult and that has coincided with Nigel either not being available or not being particularly well. And that has had an impact on us.”