SATURDAY'S game against Cardiff City (12pm) is the biggest game of Lee Johnson’s managerial career so far.

From a promising start earlier in the season, City have endured a horrendous run of form since, ironically, they lost to Saturday’s visitors to Ashton Gate back in October.

Including that game at the Cardiff City Stadium, we have played 16 games, winning two, drawing two and losing the other 12.

We have lost our last six games in the league. Quite simply, something has to give, as we are now just three points above the Championship relegation zone and, with Cardiff being on the same number of points as us, this is very much a ‘six-pointer’ near the bottom of the table.

It’s always difficult to second guess our owner Steve Lansdown’s thinking, but whilst he always likes to give managers as much support and time as possible, he will not risk the club’s Championship status by being overly loyal.

Johnson has a decent squad of players at his disposal, as our early season form proved, and we have already added three players in the January transfer window.

Bailey Wright, Jens Hegeler and Milan Djuric all bring some much needed physical presence and experience to the squad.

But Johnson has the trait of being a ‘tinker man’ who tries to overly complicate a simple game by rotating anything between 3-7 players each game.

He shares this trait with former City manager Derek McInnes who had a largely unsuccessful reign as manager five years ago.

Another similarity between the two managers appears to be an overarching concern in being too worried about how the opposition team are going to play and not concentrating on the strengths of how we can beat a team.

We have a good enough team to beat most in this league – worry about what we’re doing, not the opposition!

A win in the Severnside derby could provide a springboard for us to rescue our season, alternatively it could be the death knell to Lee Johnson’s reign at Bristol City.