City Chat: Iwelumo and Johnson have made a difference (From Gazette Series)

Bristol City fans’ panel by Will Collins

10:10am Thursday 25th February 2010 in Sport

CITY finally got back to winning ways on Sunday with a magnificent 2-1 victory over promotion hopefuls West Bromwich Albion at Ashton Gate.

It was quite a moment to produce our best performance of the season in front of the BBC cameras, with millions watching at home.

West Brom had gone into the game as strong favourites having only lost once on their travels all season and with City on a pretty atrocious run of form it seemed that only one outcome was likely. But City manager Gary Johnson and his players clearly did not read the script and an impassioned second half performance won it for the home side.

It is hard to put a finger on how, after struggling so badly for several weeks now, City managed to turn this game around. At half time and 1-0 down, we faced an uphill battle but the players rose to the challenge and in the end it was the home side who were pushing for another goal. It helped that we kept with the same 11 players that had battled well to get a point against Leicester last Tuesday. I also do not think that the impact of loan signing Chris Iwelumo can be underestimated.

He is a quality player at this level having helped Wolves to promotion to the Premiership last season and judging by his interviews he has tremendous confidence and self-belief. I think he has had an important influence on the dressing room which was really struggling for confidence prior to his arrival.

Lee Johnson’s return from his loan spell at Derby County has also been welcomed. He does seem to have a positive impact on City’s results and again I think he’s returned from Derby with more confidence than when he left. He was integral in both second half performances against Leicester and West Brom as he got the winning goal.

Our defence was also a lot tighter on Sunday, and we witnessed a very good display from winger Danny Haynes who did brilliantly to set up the winning goal for Johnson.

As good as a result this was for City, our last three victories in the league have been followed by five game winless streaks. This statistic has to be arrested if City are going to finish the season strongly. Unfortunately, four of City’s next five games are away from home! The good news is that they are all against teams currently below us in the table, starting with Ipswich Town on Saturday (3pm). Keane’s team have been struggling down near the bottom of The Championship all season and are draw specialists at home, having drawn nine but only losing two. Another tough game awaits, can City now kick on after such a promising performance?

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