Bristol City recorded another pre-season win, keeping a further clean sheet too, when second half goals secured a 3-0 victory over Bath City.
Failing to make a breakthrough in the first half, as Bristol City’s goalkeeper Max O’Leary kept goal for Bath, Bobby Reid was fouled by O’Leary allowing Jamie Paterson to open the scoring from the penalty spot.
Reid headed in a Paterson cross to make it two before a third goal in 10 minutes, as Joe Bryan struck, rounded off Bristol City’s win at Twerton Park.
Bristol City: Fielding (Lucic 60), Pisano (Moore 60), Hegeler (Vyner 60), Magnusson (Flint 46), Bryan (Golbourne 60), Brownhill (J.Smith 71), K.Smith (O’Dowda 39), Pack (Dowling 71), Paterson (Morrell 60), Reid (Andrews 71), Hinds (De Girolamo 46).
Attendance: 963.
Deciding not to earn his money on the evening, Bristol City boss Lee Johnson revealed to the Official Website after the game, he took the novel approach of NOT coaching the team.
Johnson and his coaching staff sent the players out and told them to work out themselves what was needed against a Bath side that worked the Robins hard.
He said: ‘Purposely, as a bench, we didn`t say anything. They (Bath) worked ever so hard in the first half to shut off our angles and distances, so it was very difficult for us to break them down.
Adding: ‘We didn`t play with enough width, but we didn`t say anything to the players because we wanted them to work it out for themselves. We just asked them questions. What did we need to do to create more opportunities? We needed to create width. How do we create width? By getting the full backs high and wide or by getting the wide men dovetailing.’
However, eventually the ‘players solved the problem’ and that pleased Johnson.
‘We ended up playing 4-2-2-2 in the first half and there was no width at all, so it was easy for the other team to pick off our passes defensively. That changed at half-time but the players solved the problem – that`s the key.’
A sour note from the evening was the knock to Korey Smith.
He was forced off in the first half after a challenge from former Bristol City player Billy Murphy – Johnson said his withdrawal was ‘purely a precaution’ and Smith could in fact feature for a young Robins’ side at Torquay this evening.
