Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Conway and Wells may feature as a partnership
LIAM Manning appears open to the idea of starting Nahki Wells and Tommy Conway together for tomorrow’s Championship clash against Swansea City – having so far been wedded to the idea of one striker in his time as Robins head coach.
Conway and Wells have effectively job-shared one position in the team, with the former making seven starts and the latter 15, including Tuesday’s 3-2 defeat at Ipswich, and they have only begun one game together, the 1-0 defeat to Leeds last month.
With Conway scoring after coming on from the bench at Portman Road and Wells delivering one of his strongest displays of the season, Manning faces a tough decision as to who should lead the City attack for the visit of the Swans, in a fixture which given the Robins’ run of four straight League defeats is appearing increasingly important in shaping supporter sentiment around the team, the club and the season itself.
Previously, when in the same team under Manning, Wells played through the middle and Conway was to the left – how City had finished the game in the previous fixture against Coventry – but such was the strength of the opposition they never really got going as a partnership or offered any signs it could be a successful option moving forward.
But, speaking yesterday, Manning indicated the idea of playing both from the beginning of the game is very much in his thoughts, although he was still to pick his team for the lunchtime kick-off in BS3, with the players to be told this morning before their final training session of the week.
Although they scored twice at Portman Road, City have struggled to be a consistent attacking force, ranked 18th overall in the second tier for goals scored – something which has been profoundly felt at Ashton Gate where they have found the net just 21 times in 18 games this term, and have been scoreless in four of six home League matches in 2024.
“There’s definitely a possibility for both of them,” Manning said. “I have a rough idea for a team, I haven’t picked it yet. It’s something I’ll do (yesterday) afternoon and then sleep on it and finalise it first thing (this) morning. I wouldn’t rule out them playing together. Tommy, to be fair, had a little bit of a dip, but I thought he was excellent the other night, he’s trained really well the last couple of days so he’s in a really good spot at the minute. We’ll keep pushing him.
“At the same point, I had the chat with Nahki, and was conscious he had been in and out, in and out, and sometimes it’s quite difficult to get rhythm. Having given Tommy a run of games at some point, it was almost to be fair to Nahki to go, ‘Right, you’re going to get a few games to see how you do’. And I thought he did really well the other night.”
The head coach is optimistic that one previously injured player will be available, but refused to name just who that was given a few previous disappointments. Scott Twine, Matty James and Kal Naismith have all been close to returns only to then not be named in matchday squads.
The Robins and the Swans are 14th and 15th in the table with 44 and 43 points respectively.