Bristol City technical director Brian Tinnion has stated the incoming new head coach at the Robins will need to conform to and enhance a specific style of play, as the club consider who to turn to following the sacking of Nigel Pearson.
In an interview with club media, Tinnion and chairman Jon Lansdown have laid out some of the criteria expected of the individual who will step into the role after Pearson’s 20-month reign was brought to an end on Sunday.
Tinnion’s use of the term “head coach” is a significant one, given Pearson was very much a managerial figure at Ashton Gate and it lends itself to the theory that the club wish to pivot towards a younger, more hands-on training ground coach to lead the team forward.
City have lost two of their last seven Championship fixtures but are only five points off the play-offs and with two games on the horizon before the international break against Sheffield Wednesday and QPR, who occupy two of the bottom three places in the division, representing a good opportunity for a new head coach to hit the ground running.
During his time in charge, Pearson had created a definitive identity around the City team as a fast-paced, transitional attacking side – something replicated throughout the age groups in the academy – and whoever is selected by the board to replace the 60-year-old will use that approach as the bedrock, to then hopefully bring their own ideas to the table.
“We need to be us, we’re clear now in how we want to play, how we want to be – we’re a front foot team, we want to be aggressive, we want to play forward. We’ve got pace in the team and we want to utilise that. Defenders in this division find us hard to defend against when we’re playing well,” Tinnion said.
“We want to be a front foot team that attacks teams and I think that’s what the fans want to see as well, and that’s what we want to see as a football club. The next head coach who comes into this football club has got to develop this team into how we want to play as a football club.
“You’ll see a lot of young players coming through the academy into the team because they’re doing it for the 2-3 years before and the coach has got to develop the team into how we want as a football club. It’s going to stay that way, we’re going to be that way and we’re going to play that way and it’s going to be a long-term thing for the football club. So the coaches will have to come in, and do, and play exactly that way.”
That message followed Jon Lansdown’s earlier address in which he was asked what the club would be looking for in terms of a successor to Pearson. “We’re looking for who we want to be as a football club,” he said. “We want to have a way of playing throughout the club. That needs to be someone who is progressive, on the front foot and we’re a pressing team and that really focuses what we’re looking for in a head coach.
“We have, and we always do, have a list of people who we think would work well with us and this is probably the first time where we’re making that appointment with a real focus on what that looks like. We know the people we’d like to talk to and we’ll be talking to them now and have a focused shortlist.”
Pearson’s departure has led to sustained and intense criticism from within the fanbase given the expectation that results had taken a temporary nosedive due to injuries and a lack of reinforcements beyond introducing more talent from the Under-21 set-up.
The 2-0 Severnside Derby defeat saw 17-year-old Joseph James make his full debut, while 18-year-old centre-back Jamie Knight-Lebel enjoyed his first senior appearance off the bench amid a crippling injury crisis.
There remains widespread frustration that the £25m sale of Alex Scott to Bournemouth didn’t prompt further additions towards the end of the window but Tinnion has defended the summer strategy, insisting the club recruited well and it’s a squad, at the very least, worthy of a top-half Championship outfit.
“Everybody in the summer was happy with how we recruited,” Tinnion added. “It’s a squad that should be at the top end of the division so there’s a lot of belief in the building, a lot of belief in the staff and that’s a definite for us this season, to be in the top end.
“We invested well in the summer, we brought in Ross McCrorie who unfortunately has picked up an injury, Jason Knight, Rob Dickie, we brought Taylor Gardner-Hickman in on loan with a view to a permanent, Haydon Roberts came in as left-back cover for Pringey; so everybody was really happy with the recruitment and the squad. We had two players in every position, there was real competition, so the squad is really competitive and the best group of players we’ve had at this club for a long time.
“We’re not recruiting into a way of playing, so it’s easier to recruit because it narrows down the players we want to recruit because they have to fit into our style of play. I think it’s a really good competitive group of players and when they’re all fit there’ll be real competition.
“We’ve got a lot of players under contract and looked after; Zak Vyner, Rob Atkinson, George Tanner and Cam Pring, so we’re in a really good place. We’ve got three players out of contract next summer, so we’ve got a squad that’s built to play the way we want to play.”
Whoever replaces Pearson will inherit a talented squad but also the injury problems that ultimately led to his downfall. The Robins had 11 senior players unavailable for the trip to Cardiff and the number unavailable for selection was increasing in number, rather than decreasing.
That could have been a symptom of players essentially being overplayed to fill the necessary gaps in the squad. Mark Sykes, who has remained fit throughout, as evidence of that given the number of positions he’s had to play, and also possibly Andy King who having not started all season, played two Championship games in quick succession and suffered a hamstring injury in the second.
However, slightly reading between the lines, Tinnion has indicated some of that could be down to how players have been managed on the training ground. Bristol Live reported earlier this week that there have been concerns within the club at Pearson’s lack of presence on the pitches at the High Performance Centre, due to his health issues, and the amount of time off they were afforded over the two international breaks.
“It’s been a problem,” Tinnion said. “When you have a tight squad you have to make sure the players are trained a certain way to play the way we want to play and obviously we’ve fell short a little bit on that with the amount of injuries that we’ve had.
“Everybody we agreed before the season started that we would have that sort of 22-man squad and if one or two injuries went down then we had young Ephraim, Joseph James, Jamie Knight-Lebel. We are running with a nice, tight squad that everybody is happy with but when you get 10, 12 injuries, it’s an issue.
“But we’re hopeful they’ll be back soon, they won’t be rushed but when they’re back, we want them fit and to stay fit. That’s a really important part, especially the way we’re playing and the high intensity, that these players get looked after. That they’re fit enough, one, to do it, and then we keep them fit.”
It’s understood that a meeting was held on Monday afternoon to formulate the shortlist as to who next will be appointed with the hope for a quick process, and the feeling within is that the next man up steps into a club with the foundations to become a force in the Championship.
“There’s good stability and the football club and the training ground,” Tinnion said. “There’s really good people to work around for a new head coach and to help him and obviously the training ground is second to none so there are a lot of positives about the football club: we’re in a really good place, we’ve got good players, we’ve got a good academy, sot it’s set up nicely for somebody to come and take forward.”
The decision to dispense with Pearson continues to vex supporters and while it wasn’t touched on directly by Tinnion, Lansdown reiterated his message from Sunday that ultimately the view is that the team is better than performances and league position have indicated.
Something that will be of relevance for the next head coach as they have to balance not only requirements around playing style but very clear expectations on where City should be in the Championship table.
“Ultimately, we’ve made the decision because we think the squad’s good enough and we believe in it. If we didn’t then why make a change? Do you just see things through as they are,” Lansdown said. “The ultimate reason is we’ve got a pretty good squad here and we’ve got a good chance of competing at the right end of the division this season.”
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Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
