Bristol City assistant manager Curtis Fleming spoke openly post-match on his sides 1-0 win, admitting there were periods that the Robins struggled.
Saturday saw a makeshift Bristol City beat Coventry 1-0 at Ashton Gate, with the Robins having to provide a professional performance in order to keep a persistent Coventry attack at bay.
Assistant manager Curtis Fleming wasn’t shy to admit that they may have got away with one, saying “Yeah, we can’t shy away from it [the unlikely result].
“After the game we said to the guys we played Stoke and could’ve been four or five nil up at half time when we played at home and we lost the game 3-2.
“You’ve got to win horribly in this league and the three points is everything. Sometimes you’ve played unbelievable stuff and got nothing. It’s what we always say, isn’t it, it’s football.”
The Robins faced relentless attacks from Coventry in the first half an hour, and were forced into a tactical change after only 39 minutes, with left-back Haydon Roberts having to make way for centre-midfielder Jason Knight.
“It’s difficult for Haydon [Roberts] to come off so early but we needed to make a change.
“Jason Knight didn’t start because he’s a marathon man, he’s a runner. He ran 12k for Ireland in two games. Every time we have an international break he goes away and gets man of the match for Ireland,
“I thought he changed it for us. I thought the change in shape helped us but I think that he made a huge impact when he came on.”
City have been heavily hit with injuries this season, and required Andy King to drop to centre-back, and Mark Sykes to drop to right-back.
Fleming was full of praise for the duo for their performances in unfamiliar positions,
“I thought Andy King was outstanding beside Rob Dickie,
“We’ve played Mark [Sykes] there a couple of times, we’ve got no doubt he can play in that position, sometimes he needs a little bit of a rocket,
“You just say to him ‘you’ve got to do a job for the team’ and he says ‘yeah no problem’, that’s what we want in the squad.”
Bristol City turn their attention to Ipswich Town on Wednesday night under the lights at Ashton Gate, and when quizzed on any returns from injury Fleming said,
“We’re not sure. The problem that we have, like with Knighty today, we put him on because we needed that shape, but what you get is that he’s worked so hard, are his muscles tight? Are we going to take a chance on playing him because we could lose him for four weeks?
“The two lads will be reassessed again tomorrow and we’ll see how they are. It probably helps that the game is on Wednesday and I think that’ll give us time to recharge and go again, but we haven’t got a huge squad so we’ve got lads playing out of position.
“If I’d have said before the game that that back four would’ve finished the game you’d have said hmm I’m not sure about that one.”
City currently sit eighth in the SkyBet Championship, one place off the play offs, their opponents on Wednesday Ipswich sit second, 10 points ahead of the Robins.
