Bristol City cult hero Matt Smith has suggested the Robins need to shake their “hoodoo” against the Championship’s biggest clubs to stand a chance in this season’s play-off race, after the Reds’ draw with Sheffield United.
Liam Manning’s side currently sit seventh in the Championship, two points adrift of sixth-placed Coventry City with nine games left to play this season. The first of which sees the Reds welcome Norwich City to Ashton Gate on Friday evening.
A win against the Canaries, who City beat 2-0 in the reverse fixture back in November, could be enough to send the Robins into the top-six over the course of the March international break, depending on how Coventry and West Brom fare against Sunderland and Hull City respectively.
Smith, who spent three months on loan with the Reds as they won League One and the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy in the 2014/15 campaign, insists that a seventh-placed finish would be a success for Manning’s side this term. However, the former striker believes the Robins could break into the play-off places if they’re able to convert good performances into wins against the likes of Leeds United, Sunderland and Burnley between now and the end of May.
“We said before the game it was their ability to pick up three points against the big teams in the division is something they’ve struggled with this season so that fixture there, I’m just looking at it, will be tough for them,” Smith said on Sky Sports Football.
“If they can manage to shake that sort of hoodoo against the bigger teams, they do stand a chance. I think the good thing for them is there’s not a great deal of expectation to make the play-offs, I think a seventh-placed finish would be great for the team so I think they’re surpassing any level of true expectation on their shoulders.”
So far this season, City have lost nine of their 37 league games, a figure only bettered by the top five teams in the Championship. However, Manning’s side have drawn on 15 occasions, with only West Brom and Preston North End sharing the points more often.
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The Robins have been competitive in games against the clubs pushing for automatic promotion this term, even if their performances haven’t always secured the points they deserved. City drew 1-1 with Sunderland and 0-0 with Leeds in the first half of the campaign, lost by just one goal against Burnley and Sheffield United at Ashton Gate, and shared the points with the Blades at Bramall Lane earlier this week.
In their final nine games, Manning’s side still have to face Burnley at Turf Moor, Leeds at Elland Road and Sunderland in south Bristol. While Smith has been impressed with the young squad City have built in recent transfer windows, he believes a play-off finish will take the Reds to the “next level”.
“It’s a very well-run football club,” Smith continued. “If you look at it, certainly when I left the football club, when they got promoted to the Championship, they poured a lot of money to get into the Premier League.
“Now, I think they’ve retreated, they’ve gone down a younger route and if you look at the players they’ve sold, the likes of [Antonine] Semenyo, [Alex] Scott and [Tommy] Conway, they’ve got a real good recruitment model now.
“If you look at the youngsters coming through and the way they’re performing, it’s that next level now is getting into those play-off spots.”