“We want to get to the Premier League and you can sense it in and around the training ground, around the stadium. It’s that little feeling, that little buzz that we can do it.”
Max Bird may have only officially made the step up to the Championship when he linked up with the Bristol City squad last summer, but the 24-year-old is already eyeing the next step in his career, the Premier League.
The Robins signed the versatile midfielder from Derby County last January but he didn’t officially join Liam Manning’s ranks until the summer. Bird returned to Pride Park on loan for the second half of the campaign where he helped the Rams secure automatic promotion back to the Championship.
A product of the Derby academy, it wouldn’t have been easy for the 24-year-old to call time on his spell with Paul Warne’s side. However, City’s desire to get the deal over the line during the January transfer window made it a much easier decision.
“I’m loving it. I’ve learnt a lot in my short time here so far and a big factor for me was that the club were desperate to get me in,” Bird told Bristol Live. “I’ve settled in really well, the lads are great, the staff are great, and the facilities, of course, are amazing as well.
“I’m just trying to improve as a player and improve the team. That’s what I was brought in to do, improve the team and make us play the football that we want to play.”
Bird and Josh Stokes were the earliest additions to the Reds’ ranks in what proved to be a busy summer transfer window at Ashton Gate. The two January signings were joined by Fally Mayulu, Yu Hirakawa, Sinclair Armstrong, Scott Twine, George Earthy, Marcus McGuane and Luke McNally over the course of the transfer window as Manning looked to put his own stamp on the Robins’ playing squad.
Despite being surrounded by plenty of new teammates, the majority of the 24-year-old’s football in City colours has been played alongside a familiar face, Jason Knight. Both players came through the youth system at Pride Park and often partnered one another in the Rams’ midfield. Although they have very different qualities, Bird feels his relationship with the Reds’ skipper helps them bring the best out of one another.
“I know him really well, he knows me really well,” the midfielder explained. “I think there are times when we might not be having the best of games and we pull each other through it. There are times when I know what he’s going to do with the ball or without the ball more than other players in the team.
“I’ve played with him for years, he’s brilliant to play with and I love playing with him. It’s a relationship that can get better as well. He’s always been a strong leader. It was no surprise to me when he was named captain at the start of the season because I’ve grown up with him, he’s always been a leader. The lads look up to him as well. He’s been fantastic so far this season. His performances, his ability to speak in meetings, his ability to dig people out when we need digging out as a team and maybe settle us down when things get a bit chaotic. He’s picked his moments really well.”
Having seen the majority of his football in the first few months of his City career come as a number 10, Bird has been pushed into a slightly deeper role over the last few months of the campaign. Manning has tended to utilise a system that deploys two attacking midfielders, typically Twine and Anis Mehmeti, ahead of two deeper midfielders, normally Bird and Knight.
Most would have expected this new position would mean that the 24-year-old’s influence on matches would be reduced, particularly in an attacking sense. However, the former Rams gem currently has more assists this term than any of his City teammates having carved out scoring chances against Luton, Portsmouth and Oxford United in the last two months.
Bird’s quality in possession is undeniable and he has repeatedly showcased his ability to carve open an opposition defence with a single pass. While Manning’s system has provided him with the freedom to demonstrate his talent in possession, the midfielder believes his relationships with those around him is what makes his passing range so effective.
“For me, football is all about relationships. Anis does it well, Twiney does it well, Nahki does it well, obviously, I play with Knighty quite a lot, and Pringy when he plays, he knows that as soon as I turn on my left foot and I look up, he can just run,” said Bird.
“That’s what I’m finding a lot at the minute is I’m building those relationships and they’re getting stronger so lads are knowing that when I turn and get my head up or if I’m in a bit of space and I’ve got a couple of seconds on the ball, I’m going to play that pass. For me, I might give the ball away more than I should or take a couple more risks than other players because if I can see it, why not?
“He [Manning] says if you’re going to give the ball away, do it while trying to do something and that’s something that sticks with me. I had a manager in the past who said something very similar and if I can see these pictures and the lads know I can see them, it’s a big boost for the team.”
Although Bird has taken to the second tier like a duck to water, impressing supporters and his head coach alike in the first two-thirds of the campaign, he is not the sort of player to become complacent. The 24-year-old is constantly keen to add to his skillset, progress his game further and hone his craft.
During his time under Warne at Pride Park, the Rams boss was keen to add more goals to the midfielder’s game, something that Manning himself mentioned when discussing his development ahead of Sunday’s clash with Swansea City. In his final season at Derby, he scored six goals from midfield, his best tally in a season so far. So far at Ashton Gate, he has only found the net once, in the Reds’ 3-1 win over Preston North End.
The hope around the High Performance Centre is that every outfield player in the Robins’ ranks will carry a threat in and around the opposition box and Bird knows what he needs to do to take that next step in his game.
“It might be a confidence thing, I think it’s a bit of that and the technique of striking the ball and not being too precise,” the 24-year-old explained. “I think I’m too precise sometimes and I miss the target by a couple of inches or just drag the ball wide by a couple of inches like I did at Preston before my goal.
“You don’t have to score the perfect goal and sometimes I think like that when I’m about to shoot. You’ve seen goals this season, deflections and things like that. He’s [Manning] right I think, I need to be more confident in my shooting like I am in other parts of my game because it is something I need to get better at and something that can add to my game.”
Ahead of this weekend’s visit of Luke Williams and Swansea, the Reds sit ninth in the Championship, just two points adrift of sixth-placed West Brom and the play-off places. With just 16 games left of the season, the race for promotion to the Premier League is heating up with each passing week.
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For most pundits and supporters, City remain outsiders, particularly after a quiet January transfer window which saw no new arrivals at Ashton Gate. But having had a taste of promotion with Derby last season, Bird’s ambition is clear, even if he and his teammates are taking the remainder of the season on a game by game basis.
“It’s a hungry group, very similar to Derby last season,” he admitted. “We were in a position where we were a bit higher in the table, but still motivated and focused on the task ahead. We’re not getting carried away and I think that’s important. We’re in a really good position, sort of just floating in and around it at the minute and we’re happy with that.
“We don’t really look at the table, we take each game as it comes and we know that the league can change like that. It’s going to look a lot different in a month’s time for example. We just need to win our games, every game is a big game now.”
“We sit in here, have a meeting and everyone knows we’ve got one target we want to go for. If we get in the play-offs it’s not, ‘ok we’ve got in the play-offs.’ It’s right, let’s win the play-offs, let’s get to where we want to get to. That’s the aim, we want to get to the Premier League and you can sense it in and around the training ground, around the stadium. It’s that little feeling, that little buzz that we can do it.
“The lads are hungry for it and so are the staff. They keep getting on to us about standards, quality and that’s on us to keep that standard, in training for example, as high as it can be. If we are at our best, we can beat anybody and look, we’re not going to be at our best every game, but we can be as close to it as we can try.”