Scott Twine has admitted he was trying to get out of the way of Anis Mehmeti’s shot as he scored his second goal of the season in Bristol City’s thrashing of Plymouth Argyle at Ashton Gate.
The attacking midfielder opened the scoring as the Robins beat Wayne Rooney’s side 4-0 on Saturday afternoon, with a brace from Mehmeti and a late right-footed strike from Sinclair Armstrong ensuring all three points would remain in BS3.
On another day, Twine could have been walking away with a hat-trick under his belt as he was a well-struck second-half effort parried away by Argyle stopper Daniel Grimshaw moments after he guided a clear-cut chance wide of the post.
Ultimately, the former Burnley man finally got on the scoresheet when Mehmeti’s right-footed shot struck his body and wrong-footed the Plymouth goalkeeper before trickling into the bottom corner, but Twine himself was unsure of what exactly had happened.
“I can’t say I meant it too much to be fair, I didn’t have much time to react,” the 25-year-old admitted in his post-match press conference. “It just hit me, I didn’t really know what I was doing and I tried getting out of the way, to be honest.
“I haven’t seen it back so I’m not sure if it was going in but Anis would probably say it was going in. I don’t mind scoring goals like that. I’ll take them more than the others to be fair. Sometimes you need a little bit of luck and I’m glad I got that today.”
Although Mehmeti’s frustrations would have been eased by his two second-half goals, the Albanian international was potentially denied a first hat-trick in Bristol City colours by Twine as his initial strike appeared to have beaten Grimshaw.
However, the attacking midfielder clearly wasn’t too worried about upsetting his teammate as he admitted they didn’t even need to exchange words as they celebrated the opener.
“I looked at him when I scored and just started laughing to be fair,” Twine revealed post-match. “I didn’t know if it was going in but I couldn’t do much about it.
“It just went in the bottom corner and I just looked at him and laughed.”
Saturday afternoon’s win saw the Robins avoid a run of three consecutive defeats in the Championship and also end a run of five games without a win in front of the Ashton Gate crowd that stretched all the way back to September.
Even though results haven’t quite been to the level fans have hoped for in recent weeks, Twine is insistent that confidence remains high in the Robins’ changing room heading into next weekend’s trip to Fratton Park to face Portsmouth.
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“I think sometimes we have really good performances and the result doesn’t show it,” the attacking midfielder explained after the full-time whistle. “Whereas today when you win 4-0 comfortably like that, it shows more and you get the three points.
“Everyone enjoyed it out there today. It was a good performance, I think we deserved the goals that we got and I think it has been coming to be fair.
“There have been times when I think we’ve actually been really good and not come away with the win, or maybe just scrapped a win or even lost some times but I think this season there haven’t been many games where we’ve been a long way off of it or nowhere near our best.
“Sometimes we’ve not scored enough goals or scored at the right times and you get punished for that in this league and we’ve felt that, but we’re confident, we go into every game wanting to win and hopefully next week will be another good result.”
The win over Argyle leaves City sat 11th in the Championship, five points adrift of sixth-placed Watford who occupy the final play-off place with six more games to be played between now and the turn of the year.
That run of matches up to the festive period begins on the south coast this weekend against John Mousinho’s side who currently sit bottom of the Championship table with two games in hand on the teams around them.