Extended interview: Gary O'Neil Former Norwich midfielder speaks exclusively to WellRed. please log in to view this image * O'Neil gives extended interview to WellRed * Midfielder explains his role as a leader in City's battle for survival * Former Norwich man recalls his Carrow Road memories In an exclusive interview with City’s matchday programme WellRed, Gary O'Neil has explained his role in helping his team-mates through the scrap for survival. Also featured in tonight's edition of the popular magazine, Joe McNulty answers our A-Z of questions for the Academy, Bobby Reid tackles reigning champion Marlon Pack in the latest Head2Head quiz and Jamie McAllister discusses his memories of playing at Ashton Gate, as well as his first season in charge of the club's Under-23 side. For more unseen interviews and features, pick up your programme for only £3 from one of the many sellers located around Ashton Gate. Here’s what Gary had to say… How would you sum up the season to this point? It’s been frustrating and it hasn’t gone the way we all wanted. Maybe the good start raised expectations, but we’ve been on a tough run recently and we need to come out of it to make sure we can recover from it next year, because if it’s too bad it might take too long to recover. We have to make sure that at the end of the season we’re still in a position to do better next year. Are you a believer in momentum carrying over into a new season? The main thing is making sure we stay in this league, then next season we can kick on. Otherwise we’ll be in a fight to come back up. We have to make sure we learn from some of the things we’ve done this season that have cost us points. Speaking back in October when City were in the top six, you seemed hesitant when asked if the club could sustain a promotion challenge. Why was that? I just think this league has moved on a lot and most teams who get promoted have got a majority of Premier League players. When you look at Newcastle and Brighton, most of their lads have spent a lot of time in the Premier League. It’s very surprising if a team goes up nowadays without that. Bournemouth did fantastically well to achieve what they did, and they’re probably the example for us to look at in terms of a club that came up from League One, but it’s a big step to make in a short space of time. Maybe our start to the season made people think we were close to that, but in reality we probably weren’t quite ready. Having said that, have you been shocked by the downturn in fortunes? Yes, of course. I don’t think anyone saw the bad run coming – it’s probably the worst I’ve been involved in. it’s not nice and it’s not easy to turn it around once you get on a slide – it takes a big effort. Football is very easy when things are going great and everything is flowing, but sometimes it’s difficult and these are the times when you have to dig in and scrap for every point. Has it been particularly tough for you in the time you’ve been out injured unable to affect things? The start of the season was fine, but then I picked up an illness and missed a couple of games. Once you do that, you end up trying to come back too soon and a few of the lads have had that problem this season. It’s important now that I keep my training time up, play as many games as possible and build up that resilience again that you can lose when you’re out. It was frustrating because the lads went on a bad run and I wanted to help but I couldn’t at the time. Hopefully now, with a lot more players to choose from, we can do enough to stay in the league. You’ve started the last three games. How have you found being back in the side? I thought we did alright at Newcastle and there wasn’t a lot in the Villa game. They scored a fantastic header out of nothing, which you just have to take on the chin and try to recover from, but then the second goal killed us a little bit. It’s difficult when there’s so much emotion involved to look at things constructively, but they’ve got a lot of Premier League players and there wasn’t much between the teams. They shouldn’t be in the position they’re in so you couldn’t really call it a relegation battle, but we’ve got to make sure we beat those other teams around us in the table. You always seem a calm and composed person, on and off the pitch, but there were a couple of times against Villa when your frustration was clear to see. Does this team need a bit more anger at the moment? I think you always need a bit of anger – especially when things are going wrong. We’ve got to make sure we show that fight and that spirit while we’re out there, but there is a fine line. You’ve got to be fully committed, showing that anger and passion, but at the same time you’ve got to stay calm enough to make good decisions. It’s very easy to get caught up in how big the game is and how much you need the three points. The lads have been around long enough to know what we need to do – it’s easy to say it, but it’s not an easy league and once you’re on a bad run it’s hard to turn it around because you’re playing against a lot of good teams. We’ve definitely got enough to pick up the points that we need, but we want to do that as early as possible to ease the tension. How conscious are you of your position as an experienced player and a leader to the rest of the squad, who are always going to look at the example you set? I’m aware of that and I try to help all of them wherever I can. There are times when the lads come to me to ask me stuff and I know that on top of doing my own job there are other bits and pieces that I can pass on. It doesn’t always show – like in the final half an hour at Newcastle when I was trying to help Joe (Bryan) and Zak (Vyner) but we still conceded. That’s when you think maybe you could’ve done more, but the work and the intention is still there. I’m well aware that, as a senior pro who has played a lot of games at this level, I can offer more than just my role as a player. Does that bring a greater sense of responsibility when the team finds itself in its current situation? I think it does, but I’m happy to accept that. After the game at Newcastle, I felt responsible for us not being able to hold on, because I should be able to influence the team enough to prevent that. I’m happy to put that pressure on myself. When it gets tough I’m quite hard on myself, but sometimes you do all you can and it still doesn’t work because there are some fantastic teams in this league with very good players. I’m sure we’ll find the answers – we just need to keep chipping away. That must be tough when you feel you’re hurting more than anyone, but you also need to be seen to be one of the players rallying the rest of the team… And we do that. Fans are emotional after losses and it’s been a tough spell for them, but it’s very easy for players to get caught up in that when there’s so much being said on social media. We stick to our process – we give everything we can for 90 minutes, regardless of whether it’s enough or not. Then we recover, we regroup and we get ready to go again, because that’s all we can do and there’s nothing else we can affect. We need to make sure the lads are aware of that and we stay very single-minded in our focus on the next game. With the quality we’ve got, that will definitely be enough for us. Does it take a strong character to play at Ashton Gate at the moment? The fans are finding it hard to witness the run of results… Understandably so. We feel for the fans and we don’t want to be on this run. They want to see good football and their team winning games, so we’re aware of all that. Everyone has been through these sorts of spells in their career before when things are not going well and you need to stand up. This is when you find out what you’re made of. When things are going great at the start of the season – beating Aston Villa, playing fantastically well against Newcastle and coming from behind to win games – it’s easy to be brave and take the ball. I’ve been in situations like this before – it’s not dissimilar to last season at Norwich when we were relegated from the Premier League. It’s difficult because you can feel that growing sense of frustration, but you need to stay focused on what you’re doing. How would you sum up your two years as a Norwich player? It was fantastic, I really enjoyed my time there. It was disappointing last year because I thought we’d done enough to stay up – it was only really in the last four games when Sunderland went on a fantastic run and we lost to them at home. It ended on a downer when I felt it didn’t really deserve to, after such a fantastic first year winning promotion and then working so hard last year when we were probably short of players to stay in the Premier League. We gave it a great go and with four or five games to go it looked like we were going to do it, so up until the ending it was a fantastic place to be. Was it always going to be just two years? Or might you have stayed? There was an opportunity to stay but it didn’t quite work out. Bristol City were interested and I liked the sound of everything that was going on here. That’s still the case – we’ve had a big setback, with the bad run we’ve been on and the position we’re in, but that doesn’t mean I’m not fully committed to what we’re doing and I don’t regret joining for a second. What have you made of Norwich this season and do you see them getting into the play-offs? I think they’re probably surprised by how far behind they’ve fallen, but they’re still in it. The year we went up, Alex Neil came in and we were a long way adrift but we managed to go on a fantastic run, which is what they’re going to need now. They’ve got loads of quality so it’s still possible, but it’s going to be difficult for them. Read more at http://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/article/...w-gary-oneil-3613273.aspx#H1Sd2L6komVt77Cy.99
