For Bristol City supporters, transfer deadline day came and went with very little fanfare. The Ashton Gate roof, which remained locked throughout January, was never occupied and there wasn’t even a sniff of a potential last minute deal.
While that has left fans, and a journalist who had to run a deadline-day live blog, slightly deflated, we can’t say we weren’t warned. From the minute the window opened on New Year’s Day, the messaging from Liam Manning has been the same.
“Probably quite quiet,” the City head coach replied when asked what his expectations were for the month following his side’s 1-0 win over Derby County on January 4. “I would love to add but I think it’s probably more of a case of moving a few on before.”
As Manning predicted, the winter window has been much more about reducing the size of the Reds’ squad with a couple of senior players departing Ashton Gate on loan for a variety of different reasons. Rob Atkinson was the first to exit, joining Portsmouth for the remainder of the season in a bid to finally put a run of games together after two years stuck on the sidelines.
Fally Mayulu followed ‘Big Rob’ out the door a few weeks later. The Frenchman, who had started so well in City colours, struggled for both form and game time in the run-up to the January window, culminating in the moment some sections of the Ashton Gate crowd cheered him off the field as he was substituted against Wolves. The 22-year-old was left out of the next three matchday squads before heading to Sturm Graz on loan where Manning hopes he will be able to transfer his development seen on the training pitches into games.
The final high-profile loan exit was Kal Naismith, who returned to Luton Town two and a half years after he left Kenilworth Road to join the Robins. With the Scotsman’s contract up at the end of the season, a loan spell with the Hatters provides him with a chance to earn a new deal that was seemingly not on offer at Ashton Gate.
With three members of the first-team squad out of the door and a week or so left of the transfer window, most fans assumed that City were now in a position to add the players that Manning said he would “love” to sign at the start of the month. Instead, the head coach was again as “transparent” as he could possibly be, admitting it was “doubtful” that the Reds would sign a single player before Monday’s transfer deadline.
After the press conference, the journalists at the High Performance Centre, like many of the fans on social media, were left questioning whether the 39-year-old was bluffing. The rumour mill stayed quiet in the lead-up to Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Oxford United where after the game, Manning doubled down on his statement by insisting his only plan for deadline day was to take the dog for a walk.
The Reds head coach has kept his cards close to his chest in the past so there was a slim chance that this could have been even more smoke and mirrors. However, that prospect quickly evaporated when 24 hours later City shared a ‘squad update’ that included the words: “We are not adding to the size of the squad.”
I don’t need to recount the statement in full here as I’m sure everyone of a red persuasion has already read it, but it basically confirmed that the Robins needed to close the gap in their budget having started the campaign with a larger squad than expected. By sanctioning the loan exits of Atkinson, Mayulu and Naismith, Manning’s side have managed their budget without losing a regular starter.
From a business perspective, that makes perfect sense and the club has rightly been praised for their openness. From a footballing sense, however, maybe this was the time to take a gamble, throw caution to the wind and secure the missing piece that could secure a place in the play-offs.
While several of their rivals in the Championship confirmed one or two late deadline deals, the Reds’ only activity on Monday saw them confirm three permanent departures. Birmingham City activated their option make Taylor Gardner-Hickman’s stay permanent, Cheltenham Town signed Tommy Backwell permanently after a brief loan spell in Gloucestershire and Omar Taylor-Clarke made the move to Dunfermline. That was that for an incredibly quiet January.
Of course, the January window is not quite as simple as most think, as I explained in further detail last week, but on the face of it, the right addition could have proven to be the difference. City currently sit ninth in the table, two points adrift of the top six with 16 games left to play. A good run between now and May could see them secure a first Championship play-off place since 2008 but the worry is whether or not the current group at Manning’s disposal are capable of that.
From a positive perspective, this is fundamentally the same playing squad that have put the Robins in this position with their performances and results in the first 30 games of the campaign. They kept Mark Sykes at Ashton Gate, despite interest from Stoke City, didn’t lose any regular starters, and haven’t added a new face that could disrupt what appears to be a close dressing room all while closing the gap in their budget.
On top of that, by activating the one-year extension in Sykes’ contract and confirming their intention to make Yu Hirakawa’s loan spell permanent, the Reds have ensured that next season’s squad is almost already organised with months left of the current campaign.
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The counterargument to that however will be the fact the squad now looks a bit bare in some areas. Do the Reds have enough goals at the top end of the pitch? Could they cope if Nahki Wells were to pick up an injury that ruled him out for the remainder of the campaign? Could City continue to use the three-at-the-back formation that has proved to be so successful at home in recent months if Rob Dickie were to pick up another fitness issue?
So far, Manning has brushed off those concerns, pointing to the fact that his squad is built up of adaptable players, like George Tanner, Haydon Roberts and Sam Bell, who are capable of playing in multiple positions. Only time will tell if that is enough to secure a play-off place.
Ultimately, that is how this window will be judged. If at the end of the season, the Robins find themselves in the top six of the Championship for the first time in almost a decade, they will be given credit for not panicking and securing success without overspending. If they miss out by a couple of points to the likes of Blackburn Rovers, West Brom or Middlesborough – who signed Emmanuel Dennis, Adam Armstrong and Kelechi Iheanacho respectively on deadline day – January will be viewed by many as the point City’s play-off chances slipped through their fingers.
However, football is very rarely that simple.
Bristol City’s major January transfer business in full
Outs:
- Rob Atkinson – loan to Portsmouth
- Fally Mayulu – loan to Sturm Graz
- Kal Naismith – loan to Luton Town
- Ephraim Yeboah – loan to Dunfermline
- Taylor Gardner-Hickman – move to Birmingham City made permanent
- Tommy Backwell – permanent move to Cheltenham Town
- Omar Taylor-Clarke – permanent move to Dunfermline