The innovative manager of the Championship promotion hopefuls will stop at nothing to take the club forward Lee Johnson is discussing confidence and courage, traits that will likely go some way to determining his team’s play-off credentials across the remaining nine games of another marathon Championship season, though he is not talking Bristol City but rather a night behind-the-scenes at Cirque du Soleil.“It is not as random as football but it is interesting to see how athletes control their environment,” he says in an Ashton Gate office usually home to Mark Ashton, the club’s chief executive officer. “It’s a billion-dollar business all over the world and they are often put in dangerous situations. There’s a sphere the size of this...
Despite a small squad and a handful of new recruits Leeds’s performance at Bristol City put down a markerLeeds’s season is 90 minutes old but they could not have made a more convincing start than a 3-1 win at Bristol City. The caveat is that blazing starts are nothing new under Marcelo Bielsa and he acknowledged that this is ground zero in terms of achieving the Premier League return he stuck around to realise. The wry smile and sheepish chuckle that greeted a question asking if his team’s suffocating performance in platinum and pink surpassed his expectations said as much. “I know perfectly well that this is a long season and all of the things that happen at the start...
From Leeds United’s Jack Clarke to Middlesbrough’s Marcus Tavernier, these 10 talented teenagers are quickly becoming fixtures in the future of footballAfter several game-changing cameos off the bench, the York-born forward was finally handed his full debut by Marcelo Bielsa last Sunday. Raw and direct, Clarke has the ability to grab games by the scruff of the neck; he kickstarted an extraordinary comeback victory at Villa Park last month and made a similar dent against Nottingham Forest and, before that, Sheffield United. Clarke has pleasantly surprised Bielsa, becoming the Argentinian’s go-to man, asked to spark Leeds into life at half-time on no fewer than six occasions since November. “When I started to look at his skills I didn’t imagine that...
Nketiah shows rich promise, Chelsea may rue Fàbregas’s exit, things about to hot up for Solskjær and what next for Carroll? Related: FA Cup third round serves up shocks as Barnet, Oldham and Newport shine Related: The Dozen: the weekend’s best FA Cup photos Continue reading...
Lee Johnson wants to build on the highs of the Carabao Cup run and secure a top-flight return after 38 years awayAfter the tantalising and rip-roaring first leg, Pep Guardiola invited Lee Johnson and his Bristol City coaching staff in to his office to talk over what was a truly glorious advert for football. They bounced questions off each other, which included the Manchester City manager asking whether the faded lines on the Ashton Gate pitch were a clever tactical ploy. But the white lines in question are the rugby markings, used not by the Championship football team but the Championship rugby club.On Tuesday night, Guardiola and the rest of his squad experienced this revamped and rocking sold-out stadium for...