Dean Holden has work to do as Bristol City aim for two goals a game to copy Blackburn Rovers The Robins head coach has several statistical targets to hit this season as club chases a place in the top six. Bristol City head coach Dean Holden says that the Robins are aiming to score two goals per game, as suggested by their in-house metrics to be able to be promoted this season. So far the West Country men have hit just 19 goals in 16 Championship games (at a rate of 1.2 goals per game) and the Robins are well off what they see as being necessary to go up to the Premier League. Holden explained on Tuesday afternoon that his analysts have examined the last 14-15 years of matches in the second tier, and have calculated that to find success they need to be closer to two scores per match. There is a long road ahead then. City's chance creation ranks 10th in the league on Expected Goals (which is essentially a measurement of the quality of chances created). Only Wednesday night's opponents, who have hit 31 goals in 16 league games so far and the most goals in the league, are scoring enough to match where the Robins aim to be. "I’ve said before and I think it’s important to say that we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. Statistics are a huge part of football now and a lot of them are really interesting and important. There’s a lot of them out there – we try not to get too carried away," explained Holden. "But certainly we sat down and looked pre-season at successful teams. We’re trying to go on a journey to the Premier League, we’ve recruited players who’ve been on that journey and got promoted. I’ve recruited two assistant managers who’ve done that as well. "It’s not trying to replicate anyone else. We’re Bristol City, we’ve got our own way of doing things. But certainly, looking at what’s gone before in terms of what does it take to get promoted to the Premier League, two goals a game if you can average over the course of a season should get you to a decent enough position within the league. "You’ve got to then marry that with a certain number of clean sheets and obviously goals conceded. For us, it’s about striving to improve in every area. "Blackburn have scored 31 goals this season, they’ve been on fire going forward, and they’ve conceded 19. We know where their threats are but we know if we’re at our best, there’s a real chance for three points," said the head coach. City have had five clean sheets in the league this season and have shown some defensive improvement, conceding 16 goals in 16 games: 1 per game. Last season they conceded at a rate of 1.4 goals per game (65 in 46 matches) but scored at a rate of 1.3 (60 in 46 games). There is much work to do at Ashton Gate then yet but Holden feels that once City get some quality players back from injury in January, his team will not be too far from where they want to be. https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/dean-holden-work-bristol-city-4777743
Dean Holden on team news for Weds We’re pretty much as we were for the last squad for the Birmigham game. Jamie Paterson is still suffering from pain from this hip issue that’s ongoing really. It’’s not an uncommon niggle - for footballers it’s a pretty common thing. He’s just managing the pain day to day and we’ll see where he’s at with his pain management and he’s doing some rehabilitation to strengthen up that area. Other than that we’ll be as we are. DH on Mawson, Baker and Sessegnon Yes he is [back at Ashton Gate]. He spent the initial period with Fulham. He got checked out by the specialist down in London and he’s back with us now. He’s in light rehab at the moment. Sess [Sessegnon] is with us as well. Nathan Baker was out on the grass today for the first time today doing some light work as the first part of his rehabilitation, which is a big boost for him. Everyday we’re edging closer to getting some of those guys back. DH on 'five or six' back in January Some of them will feel like new signings. Joe Williams, we haven’t seen him yet unfortunately and Liam Walsh is going to be a big part of the plans once we can get him back. As we edge towards January, and it won’t be New Year’s Day that we get them back, it will be a period throughout January, and we we might get a few back early in February. But we’re hoping that we can get a majority of the guys back DH on City young talents We’ve got Opi and Ryley and last week we had Sam Pearson, Sam Bell and Zac Smith all join us and they all did very well in training. Great attitudes. There’s definitely talk of at least one more coming next week - there’s a couple of things internally that we have to manage before we can do that but certainly you’re on the right track [that those players are in Dean Holden’s thoughts]. DH on 'tough' Blackburn challenge It is a huge test - Tony Mowbray’s teams like to have possession of the ball. They’ve got some real pace in those attacking areas as you’ve just touched on there,, with Adam Armstrong who’s in great form this season. And Sam Gallagher to the side of him as well. They’ve got young Harvey Elliott who is a real promising player. They’ve got some real threats as you say. You’re right they’ve had some issues defensively with a sending off at Brentford the other night and injury to Wharton. For us, the challenge remains the same: the boys just focusing on that next one. We’ve done our due diligence on them but we’ve got to respond like we did most recently after the Reading game. We went to QPR and put in a real solid display and were really dangerous and clinical when we made our chances as well. We’re really looking forward to it. It’s a great game for us. DH on playing teams around City I said going into the Derby game after isolation period that this next batch of games this month was going to be a huge part of the season. When we come to the end of this we’ll be pretty much halfway through the season. We’ve got four games in 10 days. It’s a huge part of the season, we’re well aware of that. At the same time it’s three points on offer tomorrow and that’s all we’re thinking about.. It’s a really important part of the season coming up, particularly with the injured players coming back after that. For us it’s about maintaining this run we’ve been on. We’re not in bad form, we’ve just had a few defeats and we’re in a decent enough position and just a few points of that top two. It’s about maintaining that. We go into this game aiming for the three points. Predicted Bristol City team (3-5-2): Bentley; Vyner, Moore, Kalas; Hunt, Bakinson, O'Dowda, Nagy, Dasilva; Wells, Martin https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/expected-bristol-city-team-face-4780300
Blackburn are a decent team, just like the other 22 clubs in this division. You can't take anything for granted in this league and anyone can't beat anyone. Teams like Norwich, Watford and Bournemouth obviously have more financial clout with Parachute Payments following relegation, and Norwich in particular, retaining virtually all of their Premiership squad from last year. These teams should have an advantage so it remains to be seen whether they will pull away from the pack as the season goes on.
HEAD TO HEAD* Bristol City v Blackburn Rovers Played: 46 City won: 19 (41%) Drew: 11 City lost: 16 Bristol City goals: 25 Blackburn Rovers goals: 34 Bristol City top goalscorers: Nahki Wells (5) Blackburn Rovers top goalscorers: Adam Armstrong (15) Bristol City most assists: Antoine Semenyo (6) Blackburn Rovers most assists: Harvey Elliott (4) Bristol City clean sheets: 7 Blackburn Rovers clean sheets: 6 League positions Bristol City: 8th Blackburn Rovers: 9th
This starting 11 seems to have a good balance, I think Pato would thrive in this 11, shame he’s injured. Time for CoD to step up and provide the creativity
Personally think we should have changed things about a bit , we looked knackered 2nd half, would have changed things up front a bit .
Ashton, how would you have changed it up front, I'm not sure of our options. As for the first half - on our part, dire. And Wells needs to be careful now, daft booking.
Would have started Fam, possibly in place of Semenyo , or even Martin , just feel they looked jaded and with so many games need to rotate a bit more than we are
Funny how we see game differently. I thought we were incredibly lucky to win. That performance, for me, was more relegation than play off material.
Solid performance. 17 games into the season and a point of the automatics. We must be an incredibly lucky side to be in this position or maybe we are actually doing something right.
I said we were incredibly lucky to win tonight. Stanley, you should know better than play with words.
Evening all. Great win tonight and puts you 6th -and just as we were beginning to catch you. Anyway, congratulations. Hope everyone is keeping well.
Say what you like about Fam, his goals per minutes played are pretty good. Credit where it’s due. Nagy again MOM for me. Beats me why he couldn’t get into the team at the beginning of the season.
I think it's great, it was a fight but we managed a win against one of the better performing teams currently in our league, well done Deano and the team, 6th place...
