Dean Holden Q&A

Bristol City press conference live: Dean Holden on Norwich City, free agents and Alfie Mawson
Updates ahead of the Canaries coming to town.

Dean Holden on Bournemouth game
My focus now is firmly on this next one, Norwich City. It’s a really big challenge for us - again against a team that has been in the Premier League recently, and that’s a challenge in itself.

And we’re ready for it. To answer your question, pretty similar [thoughts] to as I said after the game. I’ve watched the game back, and I felt we were excellent first half and unfortunately we weren’t able to take one of those chances we created.

The second half I don’t think they posed us too many problems in fairness. They had a lot of the ball and a bit of momentum but didn’t cause us any real problems.

The one clear-cut opportunity they got they took it and we move on quickly. You have to.

DH on Cherries substitution: Brunt for Semenyo
As I said after the game. Antoine had put in a hell of a shift and had a nasty knock just prior to that.

The thought was to get Chris Brunt on and get hold of the ball and start passing the ball again. I thought second half we lost a bit of flow to our play and didn’t retain the ball as well as we’d done first half.

So the thought was to get another passer on on the pitch to get on the ball and to us up the pitch. Of course, within a minute they scored and then we go two strikers and try and get back into it.

We felt the two 10s ahead of that, in Paterson and O’Dowda they can attack from those positions there and they would have given them problems in the game - and we looked at that.

I don’t get everything right! As much as I try I don’t get every single decision right.

DH on Norwich challenge
They’re an excellent team - they’ve been together a long time. They’ve got quality right across their team and particularly in those forward areas.

They’re a team that like to have the ball and like to pass through the lines and occupy positions on the pitch that can give you a problem. We’ve been through that with the players this morning and like in any game, I say it every single time, the main focus is on our performance.

We’ve had two good performances since the poor one against Middlesbrough and again we look to push on tomorrow and look to improve. To keep improving.

We look to go for three points against a very good team.

DH on Alfie Mawson and possible return to action
He has [had the surgery] - but there’s no update in terms of return timescales.
He’s back with Fulham for the time being for his early part of rehabilitation and we’ll be guided by the guys at Fulham.

Is he out for this weekend and the foreseeable future?
Yes, for sure, yeah.

Any chance he could be back before Christmas?
I don’t want to put any timescale. As I say he’s gone back to Fulham for some initial assessments, and as I say we’re still waiting to hear exactly what they find.

I think that’s going to be in the next few weeks. Following the operation, you never quite know how quickly someone can recover from the early part of operations and stuff.

We’ll see what the information is.

Do you know the exact problem?
We know exactly what the operation was, yeah. It’s just the timescales - it’s such a broad timescale with this type of thing. You just don’t know exactly how long it will be so I don’t want to put any timescale or any pressure on Alfie.

He’s already indicated that as soon as he’s ready he wants to come back here and play. He’s been supporting the boys from afar which has been nice and is not surprising because he’s been a really good leader since he came through the door.

It is a knee ligament problem? Or something else?
Yes, a knee problem.

Ligament?
[Press officer interjects] It’s a knee injury but not a knee ligament injury.

DH on team news for Norwich
It’s such a quick turnaround from Wednesday’s evening game, and there’s always in every week knocks and niggles - there’s nothing too serious from the other night. But we’ll see where we are tomorrow.

DH on free agents hunt latest
To be honest I’ve not been on my phone all morning so I’ve just come in off the training pitch.

We trained a little bit later on the grass, so I’ve not checked my phone yet to see if there are any updates on that. As soon as there are, we’ll let you know,

We’ve had some initial discussions, as I said the other night, assessing what’s out there. Of course it’s difficult in the free agent market. Players out of contract for many different reasons so it’s about finding the right one and right fit for where we’re at at the moment and we’’re working hard with that.

DH on what position the club is looking for
It will be for a defensive-type player.

DH on Ashley Williams
No, I mean Ash has not been training at all. I spoke to him recently. He’s doing some other types of fitness at the moment, for different sports and stuff. So no, he won’t be under consideration.

DH on Ryan Shotton
I don’t want to comment on names. I understand your probing - I get that and respect that. But at the same time I don’t want to speculate on any names. I don’t think it’s fair on the players themselves or on the club.

DH on Sessegnon cover
As I say it’s a defensive type player [being looked at to come in] and maybe someone that can fill in across one or two positions. That’s something that we’re looking at.

DH on rotating the squad with so many games
Are changes led by sports science or subjective opinion from the eyes of the coaching staff? Or both?

With every decision I make there’s an element of statistics and data behind it of course. Subjective on the eye is important as well - I don’t think you can specifically look at just one thing. I think you’ve got to take everything into consideration and judge each outcome on its own merits.

Of course anyone carrying knocks or niggles, particularly anything in the muscle areas at this stage of the season you wouldn’t want to risk at this stage of the season.

If it’s just a kick or something that the player can get through, that’s a different situation. Every decision is taken in isolation.

 

Looks like some new arrivals coming soon