Bristol City face one of the toughest tests in the Championship this weekend, a fixture away at Middlesbrough – after one of the toughest weeks for the club and its players – but assistant head coach Chris Hogg has insisted the players will be focussed, and called on the City fans to unite in support behind them.
With Liam Manning away from the club for an extended period following the passing of his baby son Theo over the weekend, Hogg is stepping up to run the first team – while dealing with his own grief for his best mate and his family, who he said he ‘loves the same’ as his own family.
That has meant preparing a grief-stricken team, with the added factor of a number of players returning from international duty too, for the test of Middlesbrough and the prospect of a certain young striker called Tommy Conway keen to impress after his big money move from Ashton Gate this summer.
“It’s not going to be an easy one, that’s for sure,” said Chris Hogg. “They are a good team, they’ve added well to the squad over the last 18 months or so, with really consistent messages from the manager, who in my opinion is going to be a top manager and a top coach.
“They’ve got staff there working behind them, so it’s going to be a hard challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge for us really, in terms of after the week we’ve had, to go there to try and express ourselves and try and compete and be hard to beat, and go and do what we do, really – and go and get back to showing what Bristol City can be all about: Together, fighting to win a football game, but trying to do it our way, which is the challenge.
“The lads will be focussed, they’ll be fine,” he added. The grief and sense of sombre sadness that has settled on the High Performance Centre this week has meant there has been little in the way of light-hearted discussion, particularly among the centre backs about coming up against Conway for the first time since they spent years together on the training ground.
“No, there’s no time for that this week, to be honest, it’s not been a week where there’s been too much of that type of chat from the players, not in front of me anyway,” said Hogg.
In terms of preparation for the game, such is the advanced work to draw up training regimes, strategies and processes carried out by the detailed-obsessed head coach, that the team and Hogg are still following the blueprint they drew up with Manning before the weekend’s tragedy.
“But we’re prepared, we’ve done everything this week that we normally would,” Hogg said. “The beauty of how Liam and myself work is that the week (preparation) is already done, so my job really is to make sure it runs how we intended it to before the weekend. We’ve planned, we’ll be prepared and we’re ready to go,” he explained.
There will be little change in terms of personnel on the pitch or on the bench, with Hogg making the final call regarding the first 11 later in the week. Cam Pring is obviously still out following his serious-looking deep cut to his leg in the goalmouth during the 1-1 draw at home to Cardiff City a week and a half ago, while winger Mark Sykes is out suspended having picked up five yellow cards.
The work for Hogg and his team is now focussing on those players returning from international duty. Senior internationals Max O’Leary and club captain Jason Knight returned on Wednesday morning from their stint with the Republic of Ireland first team squad, while young striker Sinclair Armstrong has another day off, having played the full 90 minutes for Ireland’s under 21 side away in Trieste against Italy on Tuesday evening.
There will also be a welcome back for veteran strike Nahki Wells, who netted a hat-trick inside 26 minutes for his native Bermuda in a 6-1 Concacaf Nations League match away in Dominica on Saturday, but didn’t feature at all in the return fixture late Tuesday evening.
“It was terrific to see him going away and getting some minutes and a couple of goals,” said Hogg.