Andi Weimann talks Pearson vs Manning, 'WSM' and his Bristol City exit. Seven years ago tomorrow, Andreas Weimann joined Bristol City from Derby County. A stretch that spanned 216 appearances, 51 goals, four managers and five and a half years, the Austrian departed in early 2024 with the status of a modern City legend. Yesterday, his return to the Rams was confirmed. Recently, OSIB sat down with Andi for a bumper interview which discusses his entire Bristol City career, as well as everything from early life in Austria to stints at other clubs. Today, we bring you a selected segment of the interview which covers the moment Weimann was reinvigorated in a City shirt under Nigel Pearson, as well as details of his Ashton Gate exit and post-City career. The full length conversation will be released as a podcast on Friday, available via all the usual channels. OSIB: Returning to the team in 2021 after your lengthy ACL injury, it wasn’t long before Nigel Pearson formed the famous ‘WSM’ strike partnership featuring you, Chris Martin and Antoine Semenyo. What was it about you three that just clicked so well? AW: I think everyone had their own strengths and all those strengths kind of just worked together brilliantly. Antoine is so strong and he used to love moving out to the wing to get past players and cross or cut it back. And then you have Chrissie who I think has got one of the best touches you've seen as a striker, how he can bring players into play. I was in that 10 position behind those two strikers, and for me it was the perfect position. I think those two almost fought the centre backs and I was the one who was just arriving in the box and was on mark. Everything just worked together. OSIB: You finished with 22 goals in the 21/22 campaign, still your greatest ever return. Did you get a feeling that you were in for a prolific season? AW: It was straight after my injury, so I think the first thing I tried was to get a good pre-season into me. We played Celtic in the first game and that was the first big tick, my first game after the injury. I got a couple of goals in pre-season and I just felt good. I felt really fit, I enjoyed it. And then I scored two goals against Reading [in the league], and that was it: ‘I've scored now, I'm back. I've proved I'm fit’. From then, it just sort of carried on. There was a time when me, Antoine and Chris nearly scored every game. You just went into the game knowing that you're going to at least get a chance. It was one of those things where you didn't really think about anything, you just went on the pitch and you knew something would happen. OSIB: It was an intriguing mix of older pros and young starlets under Pearson. When he was dismissed, the outpouring of love he received from a number of players on social media was quite noticeable. What made him so appreciated by so many who played for him? AW: I think the first thing you have to say is it's probably the first time [some of them] have seen a manager get sacked as well. I remember Alex [Scott] and Tommy [Conway], for example, they’d never seen a manager leave and Nigel gave them their debuts, so I think that was a bit strange for them, that's probably one of the reasons why that happened. But also, I'm not going to hide that I loved working with him, he was brilliant. I think it was just his man-managing and how he was around the place. He was the same with everyone, staff, players. I think that was his big strength, how he spoke to people, how he got everyone together, fighting for the same thing. That was definitely one of his main strengths, the day-to-day man-management side of it. OSIB: His exit also caused a large amount of upset in the fanbase, with people directing their anger towards the board. Were you aware of the discontent? AW: I think these days you can’t get away from it, with social media, you pretty much see everything. Like I said, I loved working with him, so I was obviously disappointed. But at that time, to be fair, I think he had a few problems with his health. So I don't know if that had something to do with it. Obviously I wasn't in the conversations that the owners had or the sporting directors or whoever made the decision, but maybe that had something to do with it. It was after the game against Cardiff, I just remember I was the captain at the time and Brian Tinnion called me on the Sunday and said, “look, just want you to let the boys know that we've decided to let Nigel go”. I was a bit shocked, I said I didn't want him to leave. OSIB: You were loaned out to West Brom in January not long after Pearson was sacked, but you crossed paths for a small amount of time with Liam Manning. How did you find your experience with him? AW: I don't really have a bad word to say about him, to be fair. I think he was great when I came in. On the pitch, he was probably the complete opposite to Nigel. He was more like the ‘on the grass’ coach who maybe didn't speak as much. He didn’t have the same as Nigel’s man management skills, but like I said that was [Nigel’s] strength and then Liam's strength was the on the grass coaching. His training sessions were really good, I really enjoyed them and you could see the plan he had and the ideas he had, and how he brought them across on the training pitch was brilliant.
Plus AW was only really there 2-3 months with LM. So not a lot of time to work together. Just RR jumping out a building shouting fire, because someone lit a candle.
I really liked Weimann and I thought he could still have done a job for us. I was at the Gate when we played Blackburn last season - Weimann scored but wouldn’t celebrate. Class act. Got a standing ovation from the whole stadium when he was subbed.
I must confess that I was a bit miffed when he left us and I think we allowed a decent player to depart when he still had something to offer us medium term.
