Bristol City have followed up a play-off campaign with a slew a top player exits, a night of the long knives with manager Gerhard Struber and several execs, a bizarre return for 78-year-old Roy Hodgson, and increasing supporter unrest - @FevsFootball takes us through it.

How's the season been for Bristol City?

Normally I write about same-old Bristol City: a few ups, a few downs but mid-table with our friends from London and Preston as the league’s standard bearers of mediocrity. Apart from last season we spoiled it all by making the play-offs. But as if to make a point that we should know our place we gave our new head-coach Gerhard Struber the smallest transfer budget in the division of those clubs allowed to make transfers. The £500k we spent on Adam Randell eclipsed Leicester City (Embargo), Hull City (no fees) and Sheffield Wednesday (Embargo). But we did get £1.2m for Liam Manning and his staff. Every cloud!

The season started really well, in the top six with some sexy football from Herr Struber’s boys. But as injuries took hold, and players having to be played out of position, we drifted a bit. Still in amongst the play-off movers and shakers, but it all felt a bit fragile. However, with the winter window about to open and £10m+ arriving (into the accounts if not in cash) from Semenyo’s sell-on, it felt time to be optimistic that we would strengthen for the run-in.

And boy did we strengthen!

Unfortunately, we strengthened Ipswich Town, Wrexham and Hull City with the transfers of Anis Mehmeti, Zak Vyner and the loan of Yu Hirakawa. Whilst Hirakawa didn’t really weaken us as he barely got minutes, but to loan him to Hull City was crazy. They couldn’t pay fees, so we didn’t even get a loan fee. Mehmeti and Vyner were two of our best players if not our best two. Vyner was “Mr Bristol City”, we even gave him a clothing deal (yes, really) when he signed his previous contract. We got a few quid back as both were out of contract this coming summer.

And we used that money to bring in Slovenian Tomi Horvat from Austria, Swede Noah Eile from America and Dutchman Delano Burgzorg from Middlesbrough. We didn’t touch the Semenyo money. It felt like the owner was saving it for a new head-coach, one who didn’t speak his mind. We brought back George Earthy on loan from West Ham too.

All those players needed to integrate as injuries to Rob Dickie and Rob Atkinson hit, then George Tanner. And so, we slipped down the table, and Struber was sacked.

Bristol City in the league so far…
Sheff Utd 1-4 Bristol City Campbell 14 – Twine 5, 51, McCrorie 26, Mehmeti 46
Bristol City 0-0 Charlton
Derby 1-1 Bristol City Morris 86 – Twine 35
Bristol City 4-2 Hull Riis 18, 42, Mehmeti 32, Bird 78 – Gelhardt 3, Joseph 90
Sheff Wed 0-3 Bristol City Amass og 6, Riis 18, Mehmeti 32
Bristol City 1-3 Oxford Mehmeti 53 – Prelec 19, Placheta 45, Leigh 90
Preston 0-0 Bristol City
Bristol City 1-1 Ipswich Atkinson 18 – Clarke pen 52
Bristol City 1-2 QPR Riis – Kone, Smyth
Norwich 0-1 Bristol City Sykes 73
Bristol City 3-1 Southampton Mehmeti 33, Twine 57, 64 – Armstrong 30
Bristol City 1-0 Birmingham Armstrong 42
Stoke 5-1 Bristol City Mubama 4, 22, 67, Manhoef 25, Tchamadeu 47 – Sykes 82
Bristol City 0-1 Blackburn Ohashi 45
Watford 1-1 Bristol City Bola 6 – Twine 29
Bristol City 3-0 Swansea Dickie 4, Riis 31, Hirakawa 82
Wrexham 2-0 Bristol City Broadhead 16, Vitek og 74
Portsmouth 0-1 Bristol City Mehmeti 17
Bristol City 0-1 Millwall Ivanovic 59
Bristol City 2-2 Leicester Sykes 46, Riis 83 – Ayew pen 17, Reid 45
Coventry 1-0 Bristol City Mason-Clark 64
Bristol City 2-0 Boro Riis 17, Atkinson 62
West Brom 1-2 Bristol City Diakite 85 – Mehmeti 4, McCrorie 22
Millwall 2-1 Bristol City Neghli 16, Langstaff 81 – Randell 49
Bristol City 5-0 Pompey Randell 11, Mehmeti 24, Twine 50, Armstrong 59, 90
Bristol City 0-2 Preston Dobbin 8, Devine 70
Oxford 0-0 Bristol City
Ipswich 2-0 Bristol City Clarke 8, 55
Bristol City 2-0 Sheff Wed Twine 64, Bell 78
Bristol City 0-5 Derby Brewster 13, Brereton 16, Clark 36, Agyemang 66, Salvesen 88
Hull 2-3 Bristol City McBurnie 24, Dowell 78 – Atkinson 33, McCrorie 39, Riis 50
Bristol City 2-2 Wrexham Armstrong 47, Bird 89 – Rathbone 34, Williams og 76
Swansea 1-0 Bristol City Vipotnik 26
Blackburn 1-2 Bristol City Ohashi 6 – Riis 17, Twine 31
Bristol City 1-2 Watford Twine 36, Kjerrumgaard 7, Ngakia 77
Bristol City 0-2 Coventry Sakamoto 37, Wright 45
Leicester 2-0 Bristol City Nelson 13, Fatawu 28
Boro 1-1 Bristol City Castledine 65 – Randell 90
Bristol City 0-1 West Brom Campbell 26
Charlton 1-2 Bristol City Dykes 30 – Twine 11, Eile 55
Bristol City 1-0 Sheff Utd Sykes 23

City fans seem to have been getting really aggy recently, seen some clips from your home games of the crowd turning. It's a fairly typical City season, so why the noise?

I think fans are very frustrated that we didn’t use last season’s play-off position as the foundation to build upon this time around. I’m not saying we’d have made the play-offs again, but it ought to have been seen as more than a single “stars align” season.

Add to that a radio interview from the owner in January where he basically criticised the CEO, the head-coach and the fans, said he felt he owed it to Vyner to allow him to go to Wrexham, and you start to sense the reasons for the anger. His defence of others in the club’s hierarchy, and telling us we should be grateful to him, just compounded things. Two hours after the interview had ended, we’d lost 0-5 to Derby County at home on Sky, it was Steve Lansdown’s Gerald Ratner moment. Several impartial / apathetic fans suddenly woke-up.

Struber looked to be doing quite a decent job to me, what do you make of his departure? What's the story behind it?

He was doing a decent job, not stellar, but keeping us competitive. It feels like the owner undermined him during January by withdrawing his backing. And then you hear all the rumours like “lost the dressing room”, the staff don’t like him, etc, and as a fan you have to decide whether results drove this or the other way around. To me it feels all too convenient that the stories come out lagging behind results and the transfer window. t wasn’t just Struber who was sacked, but the CEO Tom Rawcliffe “left” (hmmmm) and the technical director Brian Tinnion, whose recruitment was described by the owner in January as “second to none” was relieved of his first team duties. Just a big mess. The kind of actions of someone having a tantrum.

And Roy, two wins from two, but my God that was leftfield. More an exhumation than an appointment. What do you make of that?

And Roy indeed. I was there 44 years ago, first time around. It feels like Gene Hunt in Life on Mars has been asked to fire up the Quattro again. For those not aware Hodgson was caretaker manager in 1982 when we went into liquidation and were saved by eight players ripping up their contracts. I’m not sure what the national media thought of him recalling those times, least of all when he just threw into the mix that he left the club as a creditor and had to get the bank to agree to cover his mortgage. It was comedy gold as interviews go.

But all is well, two wins from two. Roy wearing his sunglasses on the sidelines, or his “Roy-Bans” as one fan called them looking like a character from the remake of Reservoir Dogs. How can you not take to him. He’s 78 you know! Although even he’s not sure, he said he was 79 too in some press conferences.

But it has somehow lifted some gloom, at least until we know who the new head-coach is gonna be.

Some big departs in January. Is that the source of it all really? What do you make of the recruitment business done and not done this year?

As above, as January transfer windows go, it was a shocker. Not much more to be said.

Summer Ins >>> Adam Randell, 24, DM, Plymouth, £700k >>> Emil Riis, 27, CF, Preston, Free >>> Joe Lumley, 30, GK, Southampton, Free >>> Adam Randell, 24, DM, Plymouth, Undisclosed >>> Yu Hirakawa, 24, RW, Machida Zelvia (Japan), Undisclosed >>> Radek Vitek, 21, GK, Man Utd, Loan >>> Neto Borges, 28, LB, Boro, Loan

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