Daniel Wales and Charles Hague-Jones discuss Bristol City’s squad depth.
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00:00Dan, looking at Bristol City, and obviously, you know, Liam Manning's come out and said
00:05a bit about the squad depth and probably going to have to go into future games and a bit
00:10of rotation. The FA Cup did allow that, you know, great attendance as well for the fans,
00:15so they were really up for that game. I mean, if you look at the sort of where they are
00:20now in the Championship, just outside of the play-off race, you know, albeit teams around
00:26them have games in hand. I mean, this is now sort of the run-in, you know, mid-January.
00:31You look to the end of the season, so many big games, so many huge away trips you've
00:36got to go on. You really want to make sure you prioritise avoiding injury and changing
00:41your squad, not as much as you want to. Obviously, you want a squad that's really going to get
00:46you there and get you to the play-offs come the end of the season, if you look at where
00:50Bristol City are now. But what's the latest on their squad? I know it's quite a developing
00:57squad in times and there's some experience in there as well. What's Liam Manning's thoughts
01:01and the fans' thoughts on how they approach this back end of the season now?
01:05Well, speaking, you know, around the timing of the World's Game and obviously the World's
01:09loss, he did make clear that rotation will be quite key coming in the next few weeks,
01:15just because they need to maintain freshness within the squad if they are going to keep
01:19challenging up towards the play-off spots. You know, Bristol City have been starved of
01:23any sort of play-off success or even getting into them for so many years in the Championship,
01:28they've always been such a, it sounds harsh to say it, but very much a stable and secure
01:34mid-table Championship side. As okay as that is, you know, they never really fight relegation.
01:40It's something they need to also improve on because you can't just, as a club, have no
01:44ambition to just sort of be sat there forever. And Liam Manning clearly has that in mind
01:49as well because he knows that they want to be higher and they want to be competing more
01:53towards the top. And so rotation will be necessary. He knew they had a, they've got a busy week
01:59to come. Of course, they've got a big game at the weekend away at Coventry City, which
02:03is certainly a winnable game as well, given where Coventry are in the league, even though
02:06they have had a bit of a new manager bounce under Frank Lampard. But obviously they did
02:11lose against Wolves, but they did make some changes, but then they'll probably have to
02:14make some more changes again for Coventry just to keep players ticking over, keep them
02:18fresh, keep getting minutes into them. But they're not also at the same time overworking
02:22them as well because the Championship, as we all know, is a long, hard, arduous season.
02:27And especially for a club like Bristol Rovers who don't, let's be honest, have riches and
02:31depth massive into their squad. So they do have to be quite clever with how they go about
02:37things. So fair play to Liam Manning. He knows what needs to be done. He just, I think they're
02:42just going to exercise some caution that they don't maybe over-rotate because then if you
02:45stumble on a winning side, you then don't want to change a winning formula. And that's
02:50the tricky thing, isn't it? Because you've got to rotate freshness, but also you don't
02:56also want to change a team that's doing quite well. So it's all about a compromise.