CITY HAVE HEAD FOR HEIGHTS
BRISTOL City boss Steve Cotterill admits Championship football is the minimum requirement for the Robins after headers from Aden Flint and Luke Ayling saw the League One leaders edge out relegation threatened Crawley Town.
Flint opened the scoring for City from a Luke Freeman cross, but a strike from Anthony Wordsworth ensured the game looked destined for a draw until Ayling’s 83rd minute winner.
It means Bristol remain ten points clear at the top while Crawley stay second from bottom and two points from safety.
“I know we are not even in the Championship yet but the chairman is building a £40m stadium,” said Cotterill. “He is not going to want that in League One for too long.
“Bristol is a huge city, there’s well over half a million people there. When you look at it the city really needs a Premier League club.
“Cardiff and Swansea have done it and are not too far away. There’s no reason why we can’t do it, too.
“We’ve done well, we are delighted we’ve got the points on the board because there will only be so many points on the board that will take you up.We are well on our way to where we want to be.”
Flint’s downward header from Freeman’s delivery opened the scoring two minutes after the break.
It came after Korey Smith’s quick throw to Freeman seemed to catch the Red Devils’ defence sleeping and keeper Lewis Price was powerless to stop Flint meeting the cross and heading in.
A minute earlier the Crawley shot stopper produced a decent save to deny Freeman, who gathered the ball on the edge of the area, skipped past a defender and shot towards the bottom corner.
Wordsworth, on loan from Ipswich, fired into the roof of the net 12 minutes later to pull the hosts level.
It came following a cross by Gavin Tomlin on the left and was met on the turn by the 26-year-old.
However, Ayling’s flicked header from an 83rd-minute Freeman corner sealed the three points.
The 23-year-old defender lost his marker with a run towards the near post and his effort sailed across the face of goal and into the opposite top corner.
Crawley boss Dean Saunders was devastated by the result, and said: “I’m gutted really, we’ve come away with nothing.
“We’ve switched off from two set plays. The second goal, I’ve just gone over it for an hour yesterday, the exact situation, and they’ve scored. I’m absolutely gutted and I won’t sleep tonight. “I suppose that’s why there’s four leagues. Players in the Premier League don’t switch off. Players in League One switch off.
“The players will be gutted too. They’ve been on the training ground for hours learning the basics. I’m sick, we should’ve won and we haven’t. You can say what you like about the performance, but we’ve come away with nothing.”