Liam Manning has warned Cardiff City that his Bristol City players will be fired up for their Severnside derby this weekend. And the Robins boss believes an exciting contest awaits with the form book ripped up for the “unique” game.
City lock horns with their bitter rivals on Sunday, with the fixture at Ashton Gate also being televised live on Sky Sports.
The Bluebirds going into this weekend’s meeting bottom of the Championship standings having pickled up four points from their opening eight league games. Meanwhile the Robins have lost just twice in the league to date as they sit 13th on 10 points following Wednesday’s 0-0 draw against Sheffield Wednesday.
A fiery contest awaits the two sides and Manning is adamant his men will be fired up for the derby. But the City boss made clear it will be no easy contest for the Robins despite Cardiff’s underwhelming start to the season.
He said, “A tough game. It’s the margins, you only have to look at the results in the week and nobody would predict them just because of how tight the division is and whether it be luck or good processes or constantly good work or bad decisions from referees or whatever it is.
“You need everything to go in your favour at the weekend and you need to do everything to make that happen. I know it’s a slightly unique game in terms of it being not a normal Championship game, there is a bit extra on it for us and the fans. They’ll be the same, they’ll be ramped up.
“The bare minimum is from the start of the game, we have to be ready to have a fight, outrun them, outwork them and play in the manner we want. I think it goes out the window in most games to be honest. Of course this weekend with it being a derby, it has the extra bit naturally anyway.
“You look at Portsmouth, they had one bad game potentially and conceded six. You look at the numbers and go off that, you can misread numbers. We’ll be making sure we’re prepared, making sure we’re fired up and we’ll be making sure at the weekend that we of course show them their respect that they deserve in the prep and the planning but we want to make it really difficult for teams to come to us.”
After sacking manager Erol Bulut almost two weeks ago after a winless start to the campaign, Cardiff’s form has taken a positive turn after beating Millwall 1-0 in midweek under interim manager Omer Riza.
And Manning has identified the tweaks the temporary Bluebirds boss has made having watched their midweek fixture against the Lions at the Cardiff City Stadium on Tuesday.
“There are some definite tweaks and changes to how they look and what it looks like. He’ll obviously have his own ideas. He’s obviously had an extra day to be able to work with the players on the grass so they’ll probably be better than what they were last time against Millwall, which I watched.
“We can do all the work on the opposition and focus on them but ultimately it comes down to making sure we’re in the best headspace possible to go.”