Number 1 - Comments

The nucleus of this project is there, but so far, progress has been slow, not least as I've been too busy to play much FM recently, and indeed have been overtaken by real life events where Brackley are in a play-off for promotion to the National League tomorrow.

Nevertheless, we soldier on and after failing to win either of our first 2 in charge, we don't have an easy third test. York City have started well and have a strong squad, so I expect this may be difficult.

Well, we did hold our own there. York look decent but we managed to neutralise the experienced Clayton Donaldson, held our own nicely enough, and even had more shots on target.

Sure, I aspire to more than a goalless draw, but it'll do for now.

It also means that four games into this experiment, we're still yet to acquire that first competitive victory, making it a must for what essentially passes as a sort-of local derby against Leamington. While not as close as Kettering, or Banbury (though they were a newly promoted team in 2022/23 so aren't here for now), there's still a local pride element in such a north-heavy division. Could we do it?

Alright, alright, alright. We have our first win.

Frankly we made hard work of it given we had 20 shots and they had 3, and it did require the intervention of substitutes to pull things in our favour with Matt Lowe setting up Bradley Rolt, both off the bench, to grab our goals in a 1-0 win. But hey, they all count.

So, with three points in the bag, the goal for momentum is to try and keep on running, even if two of our stars in Lee Ndlovu and Shepherd Murombedzi are off on international duty. This meant tweaks for our longest away day as we went to Blyth Spartans, a mere 4 hour+ drive from Northamptonshire to Northumberland.

Very hardy souls are those making such a venture, but would they be rewarded?

We would indeed.

It came about through changes. Having not been impressed by a first half that saw us trail, we tweaked formation and intensity, and that bore fruit with two goals straight away in the first 10 minutes of the second half to take a 2-1 lead.

Blyth had decent chances to force an equaliser late on, but we resisted, and took some valuable points for the road with us. So that's a sign we're making progress.

It also means we're now on back-to-back wins, and are going for the triple for the first time as we welcome Southport to St James Park. Could we do it?

Not quite.

There was a hard luck story in this one as Southport had a player sent off, and we duly battered our opponents for the second half with chance after chance going awry. A disallowed Fabio Lopes goal was, however, the cue for us to just run out of steam. Losing Murombedzi to injury hasn't exactly helped.

So, blast.

Equally important business looms, however. The board expect us to try and qualify for the FA Cup proper. To do that, we need to triumph in a trio of qualifying rounds, starting with a home tie against Stalybridge Celtic.

That's the first part of the job done. Experimented with the classic FM22 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress that I seem to adopt in all my career modes, and it duly worked wonders, as we swept our visitors away with three first half goals.

So, progress is beginning to take shape with our Brackley Town project. Now to see if this progress can be maintained.

This has progressed slower than intended as I've just been busy and not had the time to play on.

Nevertheless, I have managed to squeak my way through pre-season, and we managed to do this…

Mixed bag in fairness. In our games against EFL sides, we did reasonably well against Oxford and very well to claw back a 3-1 deficit to draw against Northampton. We'll gloss over getting mauled by MK Dons, or throwing away a decent lead to draw against National League side Solihull Moors.

The signs are there that the players are getting the methods we're going for in fairness.

The longer transfer window means I'm not unduly worried yet about getting reinforcements, though I may need to get a toe in for some areas.

Even though I only get 5 subs in the NLN to name on my bench - something I wasn't aware of before diving in - I do think some areas are weaker than others. Ideal positions to acquire talent for include a new left back and possible extra left-winger.

So anyway, matchday 1 has arrived for real, and it starts with a trip to Chorley, a near-3 hour drive northwards in one of those things that does make you ponder how much this division stretches the definition of what is north.

How would we begin?

Alright stuff I guess. Was a fairly even game and my changes did well to salvage the 1-1 draw, with Yusuf coming on to secure a point.

So that's the way we start. Next up was a home contest against Darlington, and would we begin the league campaign in the grand manner?

Well that's less ideal. Despite having chances, throwing on attackers and looking good, we made the cardinal sin of conceding first and never looked like recovering. Maybe fate would've been different if we'd not had a goal disallowed, but that's by the by.

Boo. Still, plenty of chances to turn things around.

In the real life 2021-22 Brackley season, which we are mimicking here, the team made it into the National League North play-offs. Our ambitions as outlined, meanwhile…

… are to basically build a team up.

As much focus also seems to be on cup runs, which may not be as essential for some of the more renumerated teams I've managed in Football Manager but here very much seem like the way to try and build cash. And that's not least in telling with the requirement that I make the FA Cup First Round proper.

Top half in fairness is an interpretation shared…

It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to jump up from 13th, as predicted here, to get into the top half of a 24 team league.

Such is the convoluted nature of how the National League does its play-offs now, meanwhile, that 7th could still get us a chance of promotion into the National League proper.

As far as tactics goes, 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress has been my default on FM22 but I'm not 100% sure I have the players to do that. So I'm starting off as a 4-3-3 wing play as an experiment, with this rated as my strongest 11

A couple of decent players are in my team for the level in fairness, so there's as much a case of finding the best way to use them. If I was being critical, however, I do think we could use a better holding midfielder and possibly an extra left-winger. I also have a few players out of contract just bumming around as interns, including key midfielder Richards, plus a few players in their mid-to-late 30s that could use a succession plan.

It's easy to analyse those parts, however, and another to do anything with them. My budget isn't exactly up there with Manchester City or PSG.

So, how hard can it be to make something of this?

I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

On the outskirts of the small market town on Brackley in Northamptonshire is a world championship winning sports team, in the form of the Mercedes Formula 1 team.

Since Mercedes purchased the Brawn GP team in 2010 to return to the F1 grid for the first time as a works operation in several decades, they have become a dominant force, winning over 100 grand prix races, 8 constructor's championships and 7 driver's championship titles, with 2014-21 seeing the F1 superstar Lewis Hamilton, former world champion Nico Rosberg and multiple Grand Prix-winner Valtteri Bottas regularly winning races in cars built in Brackley.

The area is certainly one known as much for motorsports - near to Brackley is the Silverstone Circuit, which hosts the British Grand Prix, while many of Mercedes' rivals and teams in other categories of motorsport work out of factories in nearby towns and villages.

Brackley Town Football Club are a team with slightly more modest ambitions than Mercedes' of world domination, but the team has a reasonable track record of late. In the past ten years, they have reached the FA Cup Second Round three times and won the FA Trophy for the first time. They have also had a number of runs in the National League North play-off as they chase a first ever passage to the National League.

Seemingly ever FM player has had a go at trying to win the lot with a team from a smaller origin, but my FM ambitions have tended to mainly focus on Championship clubs. So would I pull off something special from such a low base?

Well it couldn't hurt to try I guess.

Impressed with the ambition to try this challenge, even more impressed that so far it's all going to plan. Keep it up.

Season 2 ended at Wembley, with that game seeing us take Bristol City to the Championship play-off final.

Season 3 will also end at the North London stadium, this time in the form of the FA Cup Final against Liverpool. The Reds certainly might be more expected to be there, with Jurgen Klopp and his superstar array of strikers having won the Carabao Cup and reached the Champions League final.

We meanwhile did very well to get us into 9th place in the Premier League, a full 21 points behind Liverpool in the Premier League table but very much above expectations given my pre-season hopes were just to finish 17th.

My expectations were just to hope things were in. Defeating both Manchester clubs in the previous two rounds was a huge achievement to even make it to Wembley and reach the FA Cup final, but now another test in its own way to try and win this thing.

It certainly makes for different territory. While Bristol City are 3 times winners of what's now known as the Papa John's Trophy, they have only made it to one FA Cup final, which was all the way back in 1909 - a 1-0 defeat to Manchester United, for what the records show.

So… could we manage what was already a great season with something even better?

Wow, didn't expect that. We actually fucking did it. FA Cup champions baby!

Even seeing it in this form, there's a case of… “We actually did it?”

This certainly was unexpected in a degree given we barely showed resolve in a 4-1 demolition at Anfield on the final day of the Premier League season.

It certainly had a dramatic flourish, with both sides having goals disallowed in the first 25 minutes, but it seemed to be going the way I expected it to when Mo Salah gave Liverpool the lead.

Great work by Antoine Semenyo however yielded an equaliser when Bamba Dieng scored an equaliser, to some great surprise on my part.

From there, it was mainly staying in the game but we managed to keep Liverpool from making it 2-1, and while we got a chance or two somewhere in there, it was mainly a case of our defence being tested.

Eventually, penalties would be required, and that's when the twist came, as Curtis Jones and Sandro Tonali saw back-to-back spot-kicks kept out by Max O'Leary. Josip Juranovic then missed what would've been a game-settling penalty, giving the fear of God that we might be about to blow it, only for O'Leary to make another save to keep out Goncalo Inacio and that was that.

Bristol City, FA Cup winners. Not bad at all.

Liverpool won the Champions League final against Dortmund the week after, so they can let us have this one.

It's almost tempting to wonder tbf if we've duly peaked with this project at Ashton Gate, having taken Bristol City from Championship mid-table to a top 10 Premier League spot and FA Cup, and indeed it means that season 4 will also have the added challenge that is the Europa League.

In the end, though, plenty to enjoy.

Best 11 for the road..

I always like looking at these because it's unlikely I'd have ever actually named this starting line-up in a game.

I did ponder tbf if two Young Player of the Month games got Alex Scott ahead of Antoine Semenyo and Neeskens Kebano in the RW slot, despite a poor average. But the rest is about what I'd expect.

Anyway, season 4 is our next challenge, where the goal will likely again be about keeping Bristol City in the Premier League, allied to seeing whether we can defend our FA Cup trophy and how far we can go in the Europa League.

There's a lot going on. But it's all an exciting proposition, so let's see where the next phase takes us.

We have stumbled into the month of May, and the end of our third season as Bristol City manager.

Three games remain and contrasting with our pre-season expectations of being certain bottom three finishers, we look on course for a top half spot. Sheffield United, Wolves and Liverpool are our outstanding Premier League games, all of which serve as the prelude to playing Liverpool in the FA Cup Final.

First of all is our trip to Yorkshire to take on the Blades, puzzlingly in a game selected for Monday night TV broadcast, despite the Blades look set to stay up.

How would this all go?

Not really worth the broadcast choice then. At least our defence impressed in keeping out a fairly spirited Sheffield United out, but our attack did very much not get going.

Next, Wolves, who are much more in need of points given they're currently in the bottom 3 and need a win to force a final day relegation skirmish.

If we win, we would send Wolves down. Would we inflict such pain on them?

No. A 2-1 Wolves win keeps up their hopes of staying up, and means our impressive first season ends at home with a bit of a whimper.

It's worth noting we dropped Bazoer and Ryan Manning due to any yellow card picked up being their 10th of the season, which would rule both out of the FA Cup final. One unusual option in the shuffle is picking teenage newgen Christopher Bailey, who was probably our best defender.

Bamba Dieng had given us the lead but Raul Jimenez managed to sneak an equaliser past Max O'Leary, before Adama Traore scored a goal that keeps Wolves' hopes of staying up still alive.

Before contemplating our final game of the Premier League season, which sees us travel to Anfield, there was a curious curveball…

This happened in one of my previous FM22 saves, where I travelled to Bournemouth for a Premier League game only for it to be played in Bristol.

Kinda odd that FM is arguing that the Vitality Stadium is deemed unsuitable for the Premier League when Bournemouth are literally hosting the top flight there this season.

Given this is a roughly 2hour20 drive, it's also not exactly close for Bournemouth fans, not least given Southampton and Portsmouth are probably closer options.

But anyway, we will have two seasons of Bournemouth as tenants at Ashton Gate while they build up a new stadium.

Anyway, our season wraps up with an odd preview of the contest to come. The final game of the Premier League campaign is at Anfield, where we travel to play Liverpool a week before we play Liverpool in the FA Cup Final.

Would we lay down a marker and triumph at Anfield?

Not quite. Admittedly this was not a full strength line-up, with Bazoer and Manning still kept out of the fold due to their bans, a likely goodbye appearance for Harry Cornick (out of contract in the summer and probably not going to get a new one), no place for Michael Olise and indeed a Premier League debut for our back-up goalkeeper Conor Hazard.

As happened in the Carabao Cup, Hazard would be beaten four times, with Sadio Mane and Mo Salah tearing out defence to shreds in the first half. We would at least get a reward to cheer when Ben Brereton Diaz got us a goal, but it was never looking like being the springboard for a comeback.

Clearly, if we are to win the FA Cup, we have to work to do.

This marks the end of our first Premier League season with Bristol City and our third league campaign, so we shall sign off with a look at the table.

Well, given our pre-season prediction was strongly hinting bottom 3, to finish 9th is a brilliant achievement. So I'll toast such an accomplishment. I'd have been happy enough with 17th but 14 wins saw us comfortably avoid any notions that we would be going down.

Wolves, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest disappeared beneath the waves to the Championship, with the merry-go-round yo-yo club trio of Fulham, Bournemouth and one of Crystal Palace or Norwich (depending on who wins the play-offs) taking their places.

A shock twist saw Manchester City lose 4-3 at home on the final day to lose the title to Manchester United, and indeed end the campaign trophyless, while Liverpool and Chelsea conclude the top 4. Spurs would actually still get a Champions League place as despite a catastrophically bad domestic season, they are in the Europa League final and winning that would put them into the CL anyway.

There is of course one outstanding assignment for us, which takes the form of the FA Cup Final. Will we manage a shock and defeat Liverpool? We'll soon find out.

April began with a rerun of the last game we had in March. In that month, we'd ended it with a shock win over Manchester United in the FA Cup Quarter Final, while for this version, we travel to Old Trafford.

So, could we manage to inflict more shock pain on them?

Well - that's quite the unexpected and delightful development.

I'd written this one off when Cristiano Ronaldo bagged himself a quick double, and was kinda expecting a reverse as it's not necessarily our battle.

But we got a quick double of our own - the first when Levi Colwill scrambled home at a set-piece, and then barely a few clicks later, Antoine Semenyo lashed in an equaliser.

There was an element of fortune going our way when Scott McTominay had one chalked off for offside, but this is one to take any result we can and a point at Old Trafford for a side who was Championship last season is an excellent result.

Next in line would be Southampton, who came up with us last season.

A win was duly achieved. Super duper.

Southampton's goal did ultimately wake us up, as to that point we'd blown a few chances and were stunned when a defensive mis-step lead to Paulinho put them in front.

Two assists from Josip Juranovic did the magic for us - the first scored by Ben Brereton Diaz, the other by Semenyo, and together it added up to a win for us. Huzzah.

The game after this would see us take on Brighton, in our last game before our FA Cup semi-final to face down the expensive array of talents that Manchester City have at their disposal. So, would we see the Seagulls off?

Yup, job done.

A slightly reshuffled squad got things done early on, as Kasey Palmer and Matt O'Riley scored in quick succession, and if anything the second half was more a story of us blowing a lot of chances than actually having our lead threatened.

So next up, the big test. Wembley Stadium, Bristol City vs Manchester City, FA Cup semi-final. How would this turn out?

Holy cow. We absolutely bloody did it.

The fact that we're challenging for a Premier League top half finish on our first try is already mad enough, but our first season will be ending with the FA Cup Final, and with it, our first proper run in the FA Cup has taken us all the way to the big one. Fantastic.

The hope had absolutely built tbf given that Manchester City weren't creating amazing chances and were blowing those that they did, but then suddenly, ten minutes to go, a strike hit the bar and Semenyo poked it past Ederson, and from there, we resisted things to take ourselves a famous win. So, wow.

This was the first of the two semi-finals to be chronologically played. Who would be waiting in turn?

It's Liverpool, who beat Everton after extra-time at Wembley. That could be quite the affair, and would certainly conclude our hard road to success given it's on the back of defeating both Manchester clubs to get to the grand final.

April has two more assignments to see us off before the final part of this campaign. First up, a trip to East London to take on West Ham United.

Yup, job done. An early goal and a strike by Neeskens Kebano saw us take another impressive victory.

Could we do something similar in our next contest as we take on Manchester City again?

Not quite, as this time they got some revenge on us for that FA Cup semi-final reverse. Though tbh, I'll just have to grin and bear with it as getting the semi-final win is enough to be happy with.

Raheem Sterling, Erling Haaland and Ilkay Gundogan did the damage for the away mob, with our chance creation running out of steam the longer the game went on. But it is what it is.

So that concludes April, and just time for a scan of the Premier League table as we approach the final month of our third season in Bristol.

As you can see, we're still very much in the mix of a top half finish. Not bad when we were predicted to finish last. Hell, we're actually not a million miles away from 5th place Leicester, although that might be too ambitious a target, and given we're above such luminaries as Newcastle, Spurs and West Ham, we've absolutely done well for ourselves.

Onwards then to the final month of the season and 3 games to take semi-seriously before that big contest at Wembley. So let's see how this all pans out.

Our cause now entered the month of March, and began with an opponent we had just taken on in the form of Aston Villa. With the Villains still struggling to escape the relegation battle, this could be just cause to get us closer to our goal of staying up.

I think this might well be enough to confirm our Premier League survival.

Against something of an aimless Villa, we were in control for most of the game. Bamba Dieng gave us an early lead and really the only quibble is that it took us until the end of the game to extend our lead. By that point, Villa had seen Tyrone Mings sent off, and a late spot-kick that Ryan Manning dispatched did the job.

With that out of the way, our attentions now turned back to the matter of the FA Cup, as we made the trip to play Crystal Palace, and in turn bring Michael Olise back to face the club we just signed him from.

Would Olise be cheering or witness his former team-mates cheering instead?

A win's a win I guess.

A Crystal Palace team chasing promotion back to the Premier League certainly gave us a ton of problems, and I'd be lying if I said it was one of our more convincing displays. But we stuck it out and managed to get it all the way to penalties.

In the shoot-out, the decisive moment actually came first, as Will Hughes saw Palace's first spot-kick kept out by our cup goalkeeper Conor Hazard, while we dispatched all five of ours to book a spot in the FA Cup Quarter Finals. Not bad when one considers this is the first season we actually won an FA Cup tie in.

We would be sticking around in London for a few days after, as our next game saw us take on Chelsea, obviously sans our excellent loan defender Levi Colwill. Could we manage a result all the same?

Not quite.

The euphoria of our win at Selhurst Park might well have acted as a hangover, though defensive selection problems that lead to our midfield being compromised probably didn't help either.

Perhaps the one bright spot is that, with the game 2-0, I thought I'd throw in a regen/newgen teenage centre-back Christopher Bailey for a PL debut, and he ended up getting one of our highest ratings, so there's potential that might be worth exploring as we continue our work.

Next in line was a home contest against Spurs at Ashton Gate. While they are very much not performing, a team full of strong talents will no doubt be a challenge.

A challenge we duly rose to. An excellent 3-2 win over the Lilywhites and one that does mean we have now cracked through the 40 point barrier.

Nathan Baker's own goal put us on the back-foot, but we would roar back. Ryan Manning's penalty gave us parity, before the surprisingly good season of Bamba Dieng continued with a goal after the break to put us in front. And when substitute Matt O'Riley made it 3-1, I thought that might be that.

As it was, a late Mikel Merino goal did make us sweat, but no matter. We saw the job through.

While this isn't the last round of PL fixtures for March, our FA Cup Quarter Final means it is our last one. So here's the table.

We are staying up, though in truth, it's not really been in doubt at many points in this excellent season.

There is one more March challenge to navigate however, in the form of the FA Cup Quarter Final, which has at least given us a home tie. That opponent is a difficult one, however, with Manchester United making the trip to our little corner of the world, bringing with them all the superstars you need to challenge for the title - something that they are very much doing.

We'd need a big result if we're to reach the semi-finals…

… oh wow. Big result. As it was in the real world Carabao Cup in 2017 (I think?), we beat Manchester United 2-1 at Ashton Gate and we're making it to the semi-finals. Holy moly.

A first Crystal Palace goal for Michael Olise gave us an unexpected advantage. As we figured, the away lot began to bombard our goal, but crucially, the defence was doing just enough to resist their overtures, and the reward came when a through pass by Olise suddenly released Han-Noah Massengo to advance and score.

Karim Adeyemi came off the bench to score and set up a very nervy run to the finish, but we held out. A 2-1 win does further to elevate what is already a magnificent first season with Bristol City in the Premier League, as we are now FA Cup semi-finalists.

So what is going to be our test to reach the grand showpiece that is the FA Cup Final?

Well, on paper, nice while it lasted, wave Erling Haaland and co onwards to playing Liverpool or Everton in the final. But then I felt the same about having to face Manchester United so… the hopes we may yet deliver something incredible are there. Beating Manchester City to go with dumping out their city neighbours would certainly be quite the statement. We shall see if we will be so lucky.

February has rolled around, and we will be doing so with a new face in the fold.

January had been a fairly quiet month on the transfer window front, with letting Atkinson go on loan and recalling Pring to stand-in the main thing of note. Antoine Semenyo and Max O'Leary had been the subject of bids, but neither enough to tempt me into a sale of key men.

What then came around was a deal that took nearly all of the month to put together coming off. We'd had multiple bids rejected by Crystal Palace for Michael Olise, despite the highly regarded midfielder barely playing for the Championship club, but on deadline day itself, we agreed a deal totalling £17M after instalments are totted up to bring him from Selhurst Park to Ashton Gate.

Olise would start the first game of the month on the bench, as we travelled the long way north to play Newcastle at St James' Park, taking on a side now managed by Didier Deschamps.

Our first big statement that we wouldn't be coming into the Premier League just to make up the numbers was beating Newcastle at Ashton Gate. Could we manage a double?

Well… not quite but I'll take it.

This wasn't really a good game in truth, with minimal chances at either end. But it looked as though the win would be Newcastle's when Wendell gave them a lead with ten to go. In truth, I figured that might be that, but in the fourth minute of time added on, a strike hit the post and Ben Brereton Diaz nicked us a point.

A point is satisfying enough I guess. So we move on.

Next on the schedule was an FA Cup tie against Port Vale at home, and the expectation that like we did against Northampton in the last round, we should be the victors.

Hmmm… I mean, I'm happy we won. But I can be disappointed 37 shots only yielded 2 goals and were it not for a penalty, we might well have been needing a replay or extra-time or whatever the current form factor is for needing them at this stage.

A super strike from Ben Garrity cancelled out a first half Semenyo goal, but eventually a Kasey Palmer penalty won the tie for us. So.. er, yay?

I mean, we didn't win any FA Cup ties in our first 2 seasons so if nothing else this is progress.

Next on the calendar was a trip to Aston Villa, and a side who still have Steven Gerrard but where the former Liverpool star is hanging on to his role with Villa in a relegation battle.

Ah.

Well, this is a reminder that we still have a bit of progress to go. That and a number of injuries in our defensive ranks thinned out our options as had to put Riecheldy Bazoer into the defence, putting our main ball-winning midfielder into the defence and not really helping both.

Aston Villa had been the better side at the point when Danny Ings gave them a lead, and while we had a chance or two, it was no use after that.

Could we do a little better against Watford?

Well we did better in that we got a point. That's about it.

Watford created some decent chances but never quite avenged Joao Pedro's goal getting chalked off by VAR, whereas our attack just lacked fluidity. Which, less than ideal.

So far, we've had 3 Premier League games in February and not won any. Would the 4th be any better?

For that, we travelled to face Nottingham Forest, who have found their return to the Premier League tougher than us.

Dammit.

Two goals by Bamba Dieng, a measured defensive performance and some good game management should really have been the platform for us to take a win at the City Ground.

Then Mateta scored a goal back for Forest after the break, which just encouraged them. It had seemed as though we'd weathered the worst of the storm, and then in the 89th minute, Mateta intervened again, grabbing an equaliser.

Not ideal tbh.

February ended with that, and the table looked like this.

In fairness, despite a flat month with no victories, we're still 16 points clear of the relegation zone, and indeed, are still 12 points clear of 16th place Burnley and 8 ahead of 15th place Brighton.

Frankly, this is still above my expectations. 5 points takes us to the magic 40 point mark, though in truth, this points total could still be enough. But we've still got work to do as I'd like to finish as high as possible to grab more of that sweet sweet Premier League prize money, so we shall have to do some work accordingly.

January began with a test, in the form of a visit to Leicester City - under the tenure of Erik Ten Hag, no less.

We were unlucky to lose out to a 90th minute goal when we welcomed them to Ashton Gate, so could this meeting of Foxes and Robins go better for us…

… not quite.

We did at least have our eye in for goals, with Antoine Semenyo cancelling out Youri Tielemans' opener and Bamba Dieng threatening to give us a comeback when he made it 3-2 late on. But it wasn't really our day. It looked like it might be when Max O'Leary kept out a Tielemans penalty, then rapidly fell apart anyway as they scored with their following attack and grabbed another one straight after, with Patson Daka duly adding a 4th in injury time to rub it in.

No matter. We'll just have to look elsewhere for the points we need, and on the surface, a home game against Leeds United looked like a more winnable sort of contest. They might be in the European places, but it's not exactly unbelievable to think we might shock the Yorkshire club.

Hey look, we shocked the Yorkshire club. Go figure.

This was quite the interesting game. Both sides had their moments but we managed to grow into it after keeping it at 0-0 in the final minutes, and would be rewarded in some style as Bamba Dieng, who is turning into an unexpectedly impressive goalscorer at PL level, grabbed us an 89th minute winner.

Superfantastic.

Next up was the task of advancing in the FA Cup, which would be an improvement given we contrived to get knocked out in the Third Round in both of our first two seasons at Bristol City.

Standing in our way were Northampton Town, for whom Saikou Janneh was ineligible given he's on loan from us to them. So could we take advantage?

Finally, we win an FA Cup tie.

Northampton were ultimately pretty limited and that allowed us to dominate the game. Should probably have won by a bigger margin, but we got the goal that proved decisive when Antoine Semenyo forced it home ten minutes after the break, and that was pretty much that.

Moving on, we next had the test of a trip to Goodison Park and a contest with Everton. Victory on Merseyside would see us complete a home-and-away double over the Toffees so hopefully we'll be able to do just that.

Before that came some transfer window shuffling of the deck. Defender Rob Atkinson voiced his displeasure at becoming a back-up after we brought in a few new defenders in the summer, and was allowed a loan move to Championship side Ipswich. To fill his squad space, we recalled Cameron Pring from his loan at Aberdeen to serve as a reserve.

Anyway, Everton away. Would we bag another decent haul of three points?

Nevermind.

Not a great attacking display was the root of our undoing in all truth. We had the odd chance here and there but never convincingly looked like beating Jordan Pickford, and just struggled after Dominic Calvert-Lewin struck to give Everton the lead.

So, back to the drawing board, but not too long to come up with a recalibrated plan as next up, we had a home match against Burnley. Sean Dyche still in situ and all.

Maybe we would bounce back here.

Bounce back, tick. And scoring four goals against Burnley like we did against Nottingham Forest at least demonstrates our attack has its plus points.

This was more like it. We could've let our heads drop when Borja Iglesias cancelled out Bamba Dieng's opener, and very much did not do that. Dieng got a second, before Antoine Semenyo grabbed a nice strike and in perhaps his best display for us, Alex Scott followed up two assists by lashing in a tremendous fourth.

Ben Mee might've got one in at the end, but there was no stopping us in this one. An excellent evening's work.

Making it back-to-back wins would be a little harder, given our next assignment took the form of a trip to the Emirates Stadium and a meeting with Arsenal. So it's one to go for in hope more than expectation in truth.

Hello there. Away win for Bristol City at the Emirates to go with our shock win down the road at the Tottenham Stadium a few weeks earlier? Fantastic.

Even just taking a point with the score 0-0 in the 87th minute would've been enough for me, as Arsenal had plenty of chances in each half to trounce us in the way Manchester City did in our one full-on thrashing so far since promotion.

While we had the collateral damage of five bookings, it looked like we were about to hold out for a point until Bazoer, seemingly looking to make up for a 5th yellow and suspension, took it by the scruff of the neck, picking up a pass from sub Semenyo and floating a delicious lob into the back of the Arsenal net, winning us the game in a shock turn of events.

Hell, this might well trump our win at Spurs as the high point of the season.

That unexpected win ends our January commitments, and with it another month of the season. At the end of which, the table now looks like this…

Still on course for a possible top half finish, and will almost certainly hit the 40 point mark before long.

Didn't think we'd have it in us for such a fantastic arrival on the Premier League scene. Sure, we've been jumped by our fellow new-boys Southampton, but I don't care. I would've taken 17th ffs. There may well be 15 games of the season to go, but with a 15 point lead, I just can't see us sinking below the waves and back out of the top flight now.

February comes next then, so hopefully we'll manage to add a few more high quality results for the road before worrying about another Premier League season.

A definite sense of delight came from our unexpected victory over Spurs, but it's not as if things were about to get more straightforward.

After all, next up was a home match against Chelsea, and it's just as well we had Strahinja Pavlovic and Riechedly Bazoer back in contention given Levi Colwill is a Chelsea loanee, so ineligible against a parent club now managed by Zinedine Zidane.

Still, we could hope we might be in for a victory…

… as it is, not quite this time around.

We actually didn't disgrace ourselves but made the cardinal sin of conceding first when Callum Hudson-Odoi put Chelsea in front, failed to create a lot in response, then duly gave away a penalty that Jorginho scored.

Bamba Dieng did grab a goal back, but Christian Pulisic ended hopes.

This was never likely to be our priority in any case, and in truth, neither was our next match, in the form of an EFL Cup tie against Liverpool at Anfield.

Well, would've been nice to spring a surprise on them. As it was, not quite.

Not much to say here really. They demolished us, and we're out of the Carabao Cup. So let's move on.

What we are moving on to is indeed quite a big game, as in a December where we've mainly had to play big teams, this is a game amongst it as Nottingham Forest, promoted with us last season, made the trip to Ashton Gate.

This had the air of a game where our ambitions of staying up would be so well served by winning.

And win we did. Excellent.

This was a game where we got into the task with gusto, racing into a 3-0 lead by half time as the decision to pick all of Dieng, Antoine Semenyo and Ben Brereton Diaz yielded a first half goal for each of the three players we have as first team capable strikers.

Dieng would grab another just after the hour, and although Nottingham Forest would score two, we were able to prevent any further comeback, let alone the nerves I felt at Wolves a few months earlier when we nearly blew a 4-0 lead.

This was our last game before Christmas, so time for a quick look at the table.

Very much not occupying the dreaded “bottom at Christmas” spot. Indeed, keep this up and we could get a top half finish, which given we were favourites to go down and be with the likes of Forest, this is an exceptional start to our life as a Premier League manager.

Not that I can exactly expect to give a late Christmas present, given our Boxing Day game was a home tie against Arsenal, who arrived in our neck of the woods fresh off the back of beating Manchester City.

Still, we've had a few surprise wins. Why not dream of grabbing another one?

Oh OK maybe not.

We did have a spell at 1-1 after Harry Cornick took advantage of a rare start by grabbing an equaliser to cancel out Ryan Kent's opener. But when Minamino put Arsenal back in front after the break, we were a beaten side, struggling to create anything, missing the injured Juranovic at right-back to restore some defensive solidity and eventually conceded a killer goal to Reiss Nelson.

Nevermind. Onwards we go in search of more fruitful opportunities to pick up points later on down the line.

We carry on our push to achieve survival in our first season in the Premier League with a home contest against West Ham United, who we're level on points with in what could demonstrate signs that we're adjusting to the task.

Could we get ourselves a 5th win of the season and in turn leapfrog the East Londoners?

No, but we did still get a point on the board. Can't be unhappy with that.

Bamba Dieng had been something of a misfit since his January arrival from Marseille in the Championship, but he had shown something in cameos and in turn got a few more runs. This episode proved to show that as a great idea, with our Senegalese striker scoring a pair of equalisers, one of which coming in the 93rd minute, to give us a point. 

Next in sequence is an opponent who we played in the not-too-distant past as Southampton, who were promoted with us last season, are the team we shall next test ourselves against.

We picked up something in both of our meetings with the Saints last season, so a win would be bloody marvellous and a sign of us picking up points against our likely dropzone battle rivals.

The spirit of repetition is in on this one then - a late equaliser getting us a 2-2 draw.

This is one where, for most of the encounter, we didn't really look like we'd get anything. Che Adams got an early goal for the Saints, Bamba Dieng had one disallowed, and we sort of just drifted for most of the encounter.

But we improved when we made a few subs and got an equaliser courtesy of Antoine Semenyo off the bench. In turn, it all got a bit madcap, with Adams scoring a second goal to give Southampton the lead again just seven minutes later when, in the 89th minute, Matt O'Riley lashed in a second equaliser.

These two however felt more winnable than some of our upcoming clashes, with some of the Premier League's big fish turning up.

First up was Manchester United, who arrived as the Premier League leaders.

Well… Could've been worse.

Lautaro Martinez scored the only goal in a strange and at times scrappy game at Ashton Gate, where we actually did miss 2 or 3 decent chances for an equaliser in the second half. In the main, Manchester United were chipping away and likely to add to their goal.

Ho hum. This wasn't a game I was expecting three points from, and one where we duly did not.

On paper, a similar theory can be seen for our trip to Spurs, as despite Diego Simeone making a slow start, they still have some exceptional players capable of ripping our defence to shreds.

So I can't say I'm making the trip to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium expecting a result.

Well well well.

This is a definite contender for our best result as Bristol City manager, up there with winning the play-off final, knocking Arsenal out of the Carabao Cup final, and a 6-0 win over Stoke City in our first season.

An early goal gave us the advantage when a Neeskens Kebano corner picked out Semenyo, who got the nod over Ben Brereton Diaz, and yielded an early goal.

Spurs, despite Harry Kane, Coutinho and a litany of other half-decent attackers, offered surprisingly little, with the shots they did get together thwarted by Max O'Leary and before we knew it, we were victorious.

So much for prioritising the games I expect points if we're gonna pull this off.

This feels like as good an opportunity as any to dig the table out.

15 games into the season, and we're halfway to the magic 40 points total already. Fantastique.

Of course this isn't a guarantee we'll achieve the goal of keeping Bristol City in the Premier League. Could easily fail to win any of our remaining 23 games and drift into the Championship, so we'll just carry on.

The late heartache against Leicester in our first game after losing both Bazoer and Pavlovic meant that really, we might have some work to do in order to ensure that we don't fall into these pratfalls again when in contention for vital points. After all, I can tolerate losing points now and then but it's ill-advised in a relegation battle to make a habit of it.

Our last game of October in the Premier League took us up to Turf Moor, and a face-off with Sean Dyche and Burnley. Could we take a win here?

God dammit.

This really should've been a game we took the rewards from, and it looked to be set to go our way when sub Harry Cornick teed up Ben Brereton Diaz for the ex-Blackburn man to score. But we lost focus and right at the end Stuart Armstrong brought Benfica level. That it was set up by winger Xavier Amaechi, who turned us down to move to Burnley when we both bid for him in the summer, was another kick in the balls.

Halloween was next in sequence and a Carabao Cup tie against one of those we had left behind in the Championship in the form of Huddersfield Town. So would we get a treat or be on the wrong end of a trick? 

Hmmmm… that didn't really go 100% to plan, even if the right result was sourced in the end.

It wasn't a great game in truth, and with Harry Cornick having a goal disallowed after coming off the bench, it added up to very much something of a frustrating one.

As it was, Huddersfield missed their first penalty and with no other spot-kicks kept out, it allowed us to advance into the next round.

Moving swiftly on, we welcomed Everton to Ashton Gate chasing a first Premier League win in four.

And we would get it. Huzzah.

With late drama seeing us lose to Leicester and miss out on 3 points against Burnley, this time, it was satisfying to see a late twist fall in our favour. At the end of a largely even game, albeit one where we tested their keeper more than we tested ours, it ended up being the substitutes the settled everything in our favour. Matt O'Riley cued up Antoine Semenyo, and he got the goal home.

Next in sequence was a trip to play Brighton at the AMEX. Would that also deliver a further few points?

Not this time.

We actually did enough to win this game on stats, with a higher expected goals, more shots and more saves by their keeper, and that was on fewer possession. But as it was, Kyogo did the damage to win it for the Seagulls.

That contest was the last game before the November international break, and sees us make the 11 game mark of the Premier League season. Just time for a quick look at the burgeoning Premier League table.

Well I'm happy so far. We're above both the two teams that came up with us along with a multitude of other squads with big budgets and stars in their favour.

Onwards then, as a dicey December featuring some big contests comes up.

Having got ourselves some acclaim in holding out against Liverpool with all their talents, we turned attention to an on-paper more winnable assignment.

Next up, we welcomed Lincoln City, very much not in the Premier League, to Ashton Gate. So it would be good to see signs of progress and try to win this one.

This briefly threatened to be more complex than it needed to be.

It all seemed to be proceeding swimmingly when Neeskens Kebano gave us an opening goal within the opening three minutes, but a dumb penalty we gave away was scored by Mo Eisa.

But we just kept plugging away until the damn burst when Rob Atkinson put us in front in the final moments of the first half, and when Lincoln had a player sent off, it was pretty much game over from there.

As it was, we'd grab another pair of goals and Lincoln had another one sent off, but it was good enough for us to progress.

The regular team would be put back into the fold for our next contest, as we travelled to take on early strugglers Wolves at Molineux

Well… I'm happy we beat Wolves but nearly blowing a 4-0 lead and crawling home 4-3 is the less fun angle.

We started in extraordinary fashion. Ben Brereton Diaz grabbed two goals in 3 minutes and just four after that, Alex Scott justified his start to add in another. We were exceptional in the first half, and Brereton Diaz scored again before the break.

At that point, I could be arrogant enough to think that it was all a done deal and that we'd be returning home with 3 more points. Then came the final 20 minutes when Adama Traore scored a brace and Sergi Roberto got one. Suddenly, it was threatening to escalate, so we had to just scramble over the line.

This was the first of two back-to-back games leading into the second international break of the campaign. So, how would we fare in the second of those up at Elland Road?

Less well. Ultimately giving Leeds a 2-0 head-start proved to be a disaster.

It had seemed like we were beginning to creep back into the game when Kebano made it 2-1, but we had pretty much nothing in the tank after that and if anything it was likelier Leeds would score again. A 2-1 is at least OK for our goal difference, but still - this could've been better.

At the point of the October international break, which followed this trip to Leeds, the Premier League table looks something like this…

This has been a very good start. 3 wins in our first 7, more than our fellow promoted sides Southampton and Nottingham Forest combined, is a brilliant opening to the campaign, and our goal difference actually looks a little rosier when one takes out the fact 5 of the 11 goals we conceded came in one game at the Etihad Stadium.

It's less ideal though that we went into that international break on the back of a loss to Leeds. Hopefully we'd restart accordingly with something against Leicester City at Ashton Gate in our next contest.

Well… perhaps not.

It could've gone either way tbf - after a poor first half, we grew into the game and it looked for all the world like we might get something, despite some big losses - both Pavlovic and Bazoer, two of our marquee summer arrivals, were injured during the international stoppage and will be out for a few weeks.

But unfortunately not, as we failed to take a few good chances and paid a price in the 90th minute when Cody Gakpo ran clear of our defence to strike. Bugger.

A brutal December is also coming into view, given it contains games against Manchester United, Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal lurking. With some seemingly more generous games to come before that, we're gonna need to get a move on and grab some more results.

Before our second game of the season and first Premier League encounter at Ashton Gate, some business was conducted. A £3million fee has seen us sign the full-back Josip Juranovic from Celtic, further strengthening our defensive line. Admittedly, he was a back-up choice as our first choice in the form of a young Spanish right-back from Basel failed his work permit application, but we have a high quality option in.

Admittedly, we have failed an objective as the board still want us to make a profit on transfers, but I fail to see how we're going to be able to do that as a newly promoted club. Maybe next season if we impress and stay up, although we absolutely would make a profit if we got relegated and had to sell everyone.

Anyway, our first home game of the season and a team for whom money is a different kind of crux, as we take on the big-spenders that are Newcastle United. So how would we fare?

Our first win in the Premier League. Not bad.

We did very well to consistently limit Newcastle's attack throughout, and struck when it counted, as a quickfire double by Ben Brereton Diaz and Alex Scott did the business for us. If nothing else, at least we will not go a season winless, and indeed we're still unbeaten as a Premier League manager. Though admittedly it's a 2 game sample size.

The Carabao Cup would beckon our attention next, as we welcomed Charlton Athletic to Ashton Gate, and in the process took on one of the teams we left behind in the division below.

Reshuffled the pack but did the job. Charlton were limited against what was a back-up side featuring only Juranovic of our summer signings, and while we could have easily won by more than just the Bamba Dieng goal we did get, I'll take what I can. Win's a win in this business ofc.

So that's all good. Also making a surprisingly decent go of it is Scott, as while admittedly we only had two rounds of Premier League football in August, he did enough to win August's Young Player of the Month award. Not bad. Given I didn't think he was that great last season, it's a pleasing sign that this could see him develop very well.

The first team would be back in the line of duty for the next assignment, as we welcomed Sheffield United in a game that I think is the kind we need to target for 3 points, given expectations are that the Blades will be down with us for most of the campaign.

Three points achieved. I'll be happy with that.

Kudos that we didn't let frustration get the better of us, as Brereton Diaz had a goal fall victim to VAR, but we would pick ourselves back up, and our summer signing from Blackburn was in the right place to convert from a Juranovic cross. Sheffield United were much better after the break, we'll give ourselves credit for holding out and winning.

So you know. Yay.

This backed on to an international break, although given only 3 Premier League games have gone, it's probably a bit soon to draw up a table with a tangible feel to it. We shall move on to after that then, and a contest that raises the difficulty level quite a bit in the form of a visit to Manchester City. Pep Guardiola may have bailed after winning the division in season 2, but they've still got the talents to rip us to shreds.

And sure enough, we were ripped to shreds.

I tried something with a pivot to a back 3, but the fact we were breached by Gabriel Jesus nearly straight away was a sign it was going to fail. Even switching back to the comfort of our usual 4 at the back didn't stop Man City's tidal wave of attacks, and if anything, getting a goal back through Bamba Dieng off the bench just made them angry, with Jesus and Erling Haaland each bagging second goals in added time to confirm this was just one we'd have to take on the chin.

These games kinda aren't our battles I guess, but given how crucial goal difference tends to be in these battles, I don't think I would be happy to see a lot more demolitions like this.

Welcoming Liverpool at Ashton Gate in our next home game isn't what I'd necessarily call the most conductive to that, but here's hoping it won't be a repeat.

Well would you look at that - we avoided a repeat.

As was perhaps to be expected, Liverpool did do their best to try and bludgeon us into submission, creating a steady stream of chances all through the 90 minutes. But while Manchester City scored early and duly carried on, this time, we proved much better resistant to what Liverpool had to throw at us and got something good.

It could have been even better when with 20 minutes to go, Antoine Semenyo beat Alisson to seemingly give us the lead. But alas, VAR said no.

Still, a point against Liverpool is enough to continue a broadly positive opening to this campaign. Now the goal is to make sure this continues.

Season 3 of our run as Bristol City manager represents a very different challenge.

After all, the first 2 were defined by our attempts to make it into the Championship play-offs. This, however, is now what comes after making it into that skirmish, as we now have to try and plot a route to Premier League survival, which isn't exactly simple.

Still, I managed it with Ipswich on FM22 as well after starting from the lower base of League One. Maybe I'll strike it lucky again.

To do that, some new signings would have to be sourced…

… some duly have been. Which makes a difference as in our first few campaigns, most of our business has been done in January, and particularly the final week of the month.

In full declaration, we are also trying to sign an extra right-back, but that deal is yet to be completed at this point.

Defence has ended up being the target area, as following the January exits of Tomas Kalas and Taylor Moore, we had plugged the gap briefly with loaning in Lyanco from Southampton, but they don't want to sell us him back.

In have come two new centre-backs, as highly regarded Serbian centre-back Strahinja Pavlovic joined from Monaco while a few days before the season starts, we got the very highly rated Levi Colwill to arrive on a season-long loan from Chelsea.

In-between were the two other signings. The big money arrival, as is par for the course, is in attack, with a club record fee agreed to sign Ben Brereton Diaz from Blackburn Rovers. In parallel, we also picked up a new defensive midfielder, signing Dutch midfielder Riechedly Bazoer from Vitesse Arnhem, largely on the whim of a scout saying he was a “must sign” option.

Bazoer's target came as we offloaded Joe Williams, who joined Fulham alongside Moore. Williams had been a very good option in our first season, but faded in season 2 with Han-Noah Massengo, Matt O'Riley and Matty James generally playing better, and was out of contract at the end of the season, so we offloaded him.

We also got a fee for Andreas Weimann, selling him to Austria Vienna, while the other main first teamers out are Nahki Wells and Chris Martin, though given they were injured for the second half of last season, we can live with that. Saikou Janneh is also out on loan, though his stalled development and being out of contract at the end of the campaign means he might be on the way out anyway.

Obviously a transfer spend of £26million is quite modest by PL standards, but from a £35million-or-so budget and with £7million or so raised in player sales, perhaps the best we could do. I imagine, however, that we're still going to be among the relegation favourites.

And so we are. The outright favourites, as it turns out. Ho hum. But we've proved this wrong before, so we could easily do it again. Maybe.

Though as is often the way, the best 11 depicted here is at odds with my assistant's recommended one…

Still, I can pick a starting 11 somewhere with my lot to try and plot a course for survival.

The excitement is nevertheless there tbf to think we're a Premier League side, as we first contend with a pre-season run.

A fairly reasonable bag. Defeat to a Bournemouth side that went in the opposite direction to us and out of the Premier League was a disappointment, although a goal by young regen/newgen prospect Darren Jackson is a sign he could be someone to try and give game time too as we progress. Beating Napoli and Atletico Madrid back-to-back is also a pretty handy pair of results.

So, the first game of the season is here, and our Premier League adventure starts away at Watford. This feels like the kind of game where avoiding defeat is a must, as while they might not necessarily be down there with us, it certainly feels more achievable than trying to rouse the gang to try and get a win at Old Trafford.

Matchday one, and the first game in the Premier League. How would we fare?

I'd have taken a point pre-game and certainly would've done after we fell behind. So all in all, I can be content.

It was not an easy first half as Watford, who had previously phoned in a performance in losing to us in the Carabao Cup in season 1, did have the better of the opening half and struck when Emmanuel Dennis turned in from Jamal Lewis' cross. But after the break we were better and snagged an equaliser when Antoine Semenyo received Alex Scott's pass to score.

Excellent for starters indeed. Now to try and get the other 39 points to hit that magic PL survival points total.

The play-offs are here then. That strange post-season skirmish where somebody will end it on the way to the Premier League and all its millions.

We have a two-legged affair against Reading, starting with a game at Ashton Gate as we finished 5th so have our home leg first. 

We do have a blow, however, as both Nahki Wells and Kasey Palmer suffered injuries that will rule both out of the play-offs. In saying that, both skedaddled on our play-off second leg when we needed them, but signings and others taking charge means that I think we can manage better, and we're gonna bloody have to.

Anyway, Reading in the first leg, so what would we manage to do?

We've done the hard part in theory.

It didn't start well as Troy Parrott scored a fine early goal, but just two minutes later space opened up for Antoine Semenyo to equalise.

Lyanco then scored his first goal since joining on loan from Southampton from a Neeskens Kebano, and after Parrott had a goal disallowed, Lyanco scored again from another Kebano corner.

It certainly puts us into a position of great advantage, but it's naive to think the job is done. The first leg was a bit of a tight contest and Reading had a few decent chances to eat into our 3-1 lead without success.

Four days later, and we arrive at the Select Car Leasing not-Madejski Stadium to place Reading to try and book our place at Wembley Stadium. Would we do the job?

Well, that was much closer than I'd like, but we just about did the job.

It did feel like it had all fallen apart when a goal in each half gave Reading a 2-0 lead, wiping out our advantage and our attack just wasn't getting going, leaving me worried it might be running out of steam here.

Then, however, with extra-time looming, a fine pass forward by substitute Alex Scott released his fellow sub Bamba Dieng, and for once, our misfiring striker managed to find the back of the net.

On another day, it would have just been a consolation, but this time, a 2-1 deficit on the night made it 4-3 in our favour, securing us a play-off final place from nowhere. What a relief.

We're going to need to do a lot better to win the play-off final, but we're in, so we'll have no choice but to do the best we can to win the damn thing.

There's lots of narrative to play with for that final game, as we would be facing either a Blackburn Rovers side that beat us home and away in the Championship regular season, or a West Bromwich Albion team that ended our play-off promotion hopes last season.

So, what's the fate we face?

This is a tricky one, but that's what we've got.

Blackburn Rovers, for the trainspotters, had lost the first leg 3-2 at The Hawthorns in a game that saw both teams have a player sent off, but roared back to win 3-0 at Ewood Park to book their place at Wembley.

So, it's a big game.

The team that came 3rd in the Championship versus a team that came 5th. I'm not going to turn up expecting it - whatever happens will happen. I'm not 100% sure how we'll do if we were to win this thing, but it's on us to figure it out if we get there and just win the bloody game before worrying about that.

The self-styled “richest game in world football” rolled around one week later, and our last assignment of a mammoth season. Can we succeed where Bristol City failed in 2008, win the play-off final, and reach the Premier League promised land?

Not that you need this image to process what that 1-0 win means, but…

WE FUCKING DID IT! WE ARE GOING UP!

It wasn't an amazing play-off final in truth. One goal did the business - a poorly thought out challenge gave us a penalty inside the opening ten minutes which Ryan Manning duly converted.

Blackburn, in truth, didn't really turn up, although the xG pushed close to 1 which does mean that in fits and starts, they did trouble us, but we did so well to keep their attack at arms length in the most part, see the job through, and in turn win the play-off final, despite no Wells, Palmer or Han-Noah Massengo (injured in the week before the final). It all means that we've got Bristol City into the Premier League in our second season in charge, and avenging the heartbreaking loss to West Brom the year before.

I guess now I do get to worry about how the hell I'm meant to keep them up in the Premier League.

Best 11 before we go…

Now I guess we get to figure out how to use our £35million-odd budget to do get in the best bang for our buck and in the process ensure that Bristol City can stay in the Premier League.

The euphoria was absolutely excellent, but now an even harder project to figure out.

Time is running out on our second season as Bristol City manager, and with it, our attempt to make it back-to-back top six finishes for the Robins.

Four games remain, starting with a trip to play Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium…

That will do alright I guess. Not the best display imo, though on balance probably did enough to win it.

As it was, an equaliser by Neeskens Kebano means we take a point back down to Bristol with us. So there's that.

Next up, Ipswich, and a chance to try and finally beat the Tractor Boys after losses at Portman Road in league and FA Cup earlier on this season

Success eventually then. Yay.

At this point of the season, we're in the business of taking what we can get and a 1-0 win courtesy of a dramatic goal in the last few minutes after we threw on all our strikers certainly ticks the box.

Top scorer Antoine Semenyo was the belated hero. We spent most of the game battering Ipswich, but that last bit threatened to be elusive until finally, right at the end of it all, we managed to prize the door open and nab the goal that grabs us what could yet be a vital win in the context of this season.

Just two games are left to play of our season then, starting with a trip to our play-off conquerors in last season's top six skirmish - West Bromwich Albion, a team who are also in need of points for their own play-off push.

A win would likely all-but confirm our spot at the end of this tricky run of games and ahead of a final day contest with mid-table Blackpool.

Well, it goes to the final day but we'll go into it still nursing a top six spot.

Things seemed to go our way as, after a slow start, we began to offer more of a threat and struck when Semenyo slotted us in front just after the break.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to prevent West Brom from equalising, but we resisted their attempts at a comeback win and could even have nicked a winner of our own. But a draw is still a reasonable enough thing to pick up from a tough place to go.

That all meant that, with one game outstanding of the 2022/23 Championship season, the fight looked like this…

While Southampton and Nottingham Forest have already confirmed their Premier League progression and Blackburn have a play-off spot to go, the battle for the other 3 spots is mighty close. Just 4 points split 6 teams, all of whom could yet end the final day of the campaign as in the play-offs.

Worth noting that our 79 points total matches what we got last season in finishing 6th. Could yet finish with a higher number than that and miss out if results don't go our way on what's likely to be a tense multi-team focused final day squabble.

Would we hold our nerve against mid-table Blackpool at Ashton Gate?

Well we're there but holy shit that was close.

It very nearly looked like we were going to suffer a case of the yips. The live-score ticker was giving us updates that West Brom, Middlesbrough and Brentford were all winning their final assignments of the season whereas try as we might, we just couldn't force the ball into the Blackpool net.

Then, with the final minutes arriving, and just like we did in Ipswich two games prior, we somehow got the ball over the line right at the end. A cross from Harry Cornick, substitute Kebano got a yard on his covering defender, and just like that, the ball was in the Blackpool net.

So thank fuck for that, and a genuine note of tension I've not felt in a video game since playing Last of Us 2. Or maybe that's a sign I don't play them enough.

Anyway, final table…

So we're in a 4-way skirmish with Blackburn, Reading and West Brom for that final Premier League spot alongside the already promoted Southampton and Nottingham Forest.

It's certainly less painful than the heartache suffered by Birmingham City, who had gone on a brilliant run to get into 4th on the final day, only for a final day reverse at Blackburn to see them miss out by one point. It's also less miserable than Brentford, who sacked their manager in direct response to a failure to make it into the top end. We've also at least still got something to fight for, unlike QPR, Burton and Luton sides who slip beneath the waves into League One.

But that's a different equation. To the more important business…

So two games against rivals about 1hr20-30 down the M4, with the prize of a trip to Wembley on offer against either a side we haven't beaten as Bristol City manager in Blackburn, or a West Brom team who beat us in last season's play-offs.

Will we strike it lucky this time? I don't know just yet, but I will soon enough.

April has arrived and with it the first of our final 8 games to try and secure a place in the play-offs, and hopefully this time succeed after we were dumped out over 2 legs by West Brom last season.

We dive straight in with a clash at home to relegation-threatened Burton Albion.

Success.

Nothing much more to say about this one. Took longer than ideal given we created and duly spurned a ton of chances, but Antoine Semenyo got one just after the break and in the sixth minute of time added on Nahki Wells finally got his first post-injury goal, coming just a day after he said he will not sign a new contract and will leave Ashton Gate at the end of the season.

Not much time to dwell on that, mind, as the Championship still has lots of games to throw at us. Next up, the first game of the Easter double header and the reverse of our season opener as we travel to play Coventry City.

We thumped Coventry on the opening day so another result like that will do us a world of good ahead of some tricky looking games against play-off rivals and teams with strong squads

Well… that's not good.

We were already not having a good time when it all fell apart in quick succession, as first George Tanner got a dumb red card (and a 3 game ban to go with it), before Tyler Walker squeezed in what turned out to be the only goal.

A few days of work are duly needed to figure out how we got that so wrong, and try to do better for a more tricky looking test as we welcomed Brentford to Ashton Gate

Now that's more bloody like it. Possibly one of our best displays of the season against a Brentford team stuffed with talent and making a late dash for the play-offs, but we very much came on top.

A little disappointed we couldn't keep a clean-sheet but a 4-1 win over Brentford is absolutely a sign we've made progress with this Bristol City project, with Harry Cornick, Semenyo and Neeskens Kebano those getting a cheeky goal bonus.

Next on our fixture list was a trip to play Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, and in the process, a side also relegated from last season's Premier League, albeit one who have fallen wildly below expectations and are on course for a bottom half finish having come nowhere near challenging for a return to the top 20.

What would go down here?

Another important win, this time showing resilience both in coming from behind and crucial changes off the bench.

We did well to quickly come back after Wilfred Zaha had given Palace the lead midway through the first half, with Cornick striking four minutes later. But the decision to hook Wells and Kasey Palmer proved dividends, with Matt O'Riley scoring two super goals - the second of which was assisted by fellow sub Alex Scott.

That game means we now have just 4 remaining, and the situation at the top of the table looks like the following…

Those wins over Brentford and Crystal Palace have certainly helped us keep true, given that some of the teams behind us are also getting results at a good rate.

There's certainly a tight fight on, mind, with just six points splitting Reading in 3rd from Brentford in 9th, and in truth, 10th place Ipswich might see a 5 point gap as something they might be able to overcome in such a crowded fight.

As if Brentford and Palace wasn't a tough enough double for us to overcome, we also have to play Middlesbrough, Ipswich and West Brom all in a row, and realistically, we will need results from all 3 of those matches to ensure we're not jumped by somebody behind us.

Best get on with trying to do that, then.

Into March we go, and there is still plenty to play for as we try our best to lock in that top six finish. Can we do it? We'll see. Will I be happy if we do? Partially. Will I actually show game photos rather than asking rhetorical questions?

So first of all we had the task of a trip to Blackburn Rovers, who beat us in the reverse fixture and where we lost 5-2 last season. Would this visit to Ewood Park go any better?

Well it was better than a 5-2 but a 2-0 loss isn't exactly the same kind of an improvement that a point or more woulda been.

Things might have been different had a Bamba Dieng goal not bit the dust at the hand of an offside flag, denying our January signing the chance to push on after he got his first Bristol City goal at Southampton last time out. But our attack was worryingly insipid throughout, leaving us reliant on the hope we could grind out a point.

We were on track to do that in fairness, but then came a tour de force by Sheyi Ojo and Joe Gelhardt, as first Ojo assisted Gelhardt, and then Gelhardt assisted Ojo.

So that was a misfire. Would we do better against Birmingham City in the next contest?

In one sense, yes. In another, not really.

There was a proper disappointment right at the end when it looked like we'd got a priceless late winner against a side that is also in the play-off fight, only for an offside flag to disallow Han-Noah Massengo's goal from standing. This in truth is one where we can be disappointed, as while we did a great job at keeping Birmingham's attack quiet, we couldn't turn pressure into goals at the other end. Which was infuriating from this one.

Maybe a clash with an out-of-sorts QPR would do us better.

And do it better it did.

Or at least it was a better day for Antoine Semenyo, who was restored to the central striker role after looking kinda unremarkable out wide and duly bagged a hat-trick, justifying the switch. It may also give me a headache given Dieng and Nahki Wells are pushing to start there, but Semenyo's emergence as a central striker could at least answer a question at the end of the season on what to do up top, assuming somebody else doesn't take note and gives us a lot of money to buy him.

So at the third attempt, that was our first win in the month of March. Would there be another from a trip east down the M4 to take on Reading?

Not exactly.

If a side was going to win this one, it was us. We created a litany of excellent chances, our attack was in sync in terms of prepping stuff, our defence mostly did alright at stopping Reading - barring a chance or two that Max O'Leary repelled - but when push came to serve, it just didn't go our way in terms of finding a winner.

Ho hum.

So that's March out the way and with an international break following our trip to the ground no longer called the Madejski Stadium, we had some time for contemplation and reflection or similar qualities ahead of the sugar rush of games coming our way in a busy April and May.

But first, the table.

Match may not have been the easiest of months for us, given we got just 1 win in our 4 games, but our rivals weren't that consistent either, so we remain a team in hold of the coveted top 6 berth for the time being.

This is a tight fight, however. From 4th place Blackburn to 9th place Birmingham, there's a gap of just six points of separation, and given 10th place Ipswich are 3 points off the play-offs, they might be a valid contender for this fight as well.

Eight games to go, and there's plenty of twists and turns left in this one yet. That's absolutely the case for us, as our April fixture run is intense. We still have to play Brentford, Middlesbrough, Ipswich and West Brom in quick succession, with a Crystal Palace team that still has a PL-quality squad despite flatlining also lurking in wait.

Nothing about this fight is sorted yet, in short. One way or another, however, we'll try to stay in this through to the bitter end. Given the pre-season expectation was just to fight for midtable, we are already doing better than the board expected, so let's see if we can stick the landing and truly smash our expectations in the grand manner.

February then. What happened in February?

Well, it began with a home game against Preston North End.

It was a slow start for a modified team, as although we dominated mid-table Preston and created some excellent chances, we just couldn't get one in the back of the net.

Maybe we'd get better luck in our next game, which was the form of a trip to Millwall…

… that would indeed be better luck.

Not a high quality game by any means, but the decisive moment came our way when Ryan Manning swept in a lovely free-kick. On his comeback, Nahki Wells had a goal disallowed that would've made it 2-0, but we did the work we needed to in order to win this contest. So yay us.

The third game of the month would represent an escalation in the difficulty as we made the trip to go play Nottingham Forest, who are currently in a good spot to make the automatic promotion spots.

Winning at the City Ground could be a decent statement of intent that we might try and get ourselves still into the debate for a top two finish.

This would ultimately not be our day then.

It looked like it might be at one point as we made a better start to the match, and deservedly took the lead when Kasey Palmer finished after good work by Bamba Dieng.

But a collapse in the final stages of the first half undid it, with Tyler Roberts and Brennan Johnson putting the game on its head.

The second half saw us waste plenty of chances to equalise, and with that, we were beaten. Crap.

We would sure enough need a tonic to get over that, and we were hoping one would come against Charlton Athletic.

Consider Charlton dealt with then.

We were generally the better team throughout this contest, but would have to wait for our substitutes to do the job, as first Antoine Semenyo and then Alex Scott got the goals to make it 2-0.

A good result regardless of how it came, so there's that.

Now to try and make it 2 home wins out of 2 as we welcomed Huddersfield Town to Ashton Gate.

Huddersfield didn't quite follow the script.

It looked going to plan after Palmer put us 1-0 up with an early penalty, but very much didn't follow.

I made the slightly bold choice to give Connor Hazard a run-out against Charlton and after he did well, I stuck with him, but Huddersfield just didn't give him any mercy, scoring a trio of goals and leaving us shell-shocked.

We were at least able to avoid slipping to defeat when Neeskens Kebano and then Palmer got goals to haul us back to 3-3, and in that context, any result is a good one. It's hard not to be irritated we were in the need of a comeback like this in order to treat this game as a “… welp, better than nothing” sort of contest, mind.

Our last February assignment, by contrast, is a game where a point would represent a good result, as we travelled to the South Coast to take on Southampton, who we beat at Ashton Gate in one of our first games of the season, but who have duly pushed on and look set to get promoted.

A home and away double would certainly be quite the statement of intent, but would we earn it?

Not quite the home-and-away double, but the satisfaction of a late point cannot be denied.

Southampton battered us at times, especially at the break, but the belief was there as they failed to add to Reine-Adelaide's goal in first half stoppage time, and from nowhere, we got something right at the end. A long ball by George Tanner, substitute Bamba Dieng got something on it, and a goal was found. Delicious stuff.

So we end February with two points, if from very different vibes as to how I feel about them.

The net result is that with 12 games to go, our Championship table resembles this…

My target is a top six finish and we're still on track for that. So, guess we'll keep on keeping on.

January, then. Last season was quite the up and downs on the transfer front, given that 2 key men left in Bentley and Dasilva, with 5 coming in. So what would this one bring?

Well first up, we welcomed Cardiff in a Severnside Derby at Ashton Gate.

Pretty much a repeat of the game against West Brom in our first match back after the World Cup break. Gave ourselves a springboard with good goals, but conceded late in each half. At least this time it wasn't in added time at the end of each half, but still wildly annoying.

If nothing else we did at least see a decent goal return for Han-Noah Massengo. Usually used as BWM, this time he took up the box-to-box role and scorerd both an early penalty and one other. Not bad.

It is worth noting, however, that things are already moving on the player front. After I rejected a low-ball offer for Tomas Kalas, the Czech defender got upset, and refused to sign a new contract. He ended up signing a deal with Dutch side FC Utrecht, and with FM now having a “Sell now” option, I agreed a £200,000 deal to send him to the Netherlands.

Also on the way out was Tyreeq Bakinson. Having fallen down the pecking order, we opted to offload, but while Charlton gave us a decent fee, Hearts and the lure of European football proved more up his street. Like with Kalas, we arranged a “Buy now” deal and sold him to the Edinburgh-based side for £150,000. Less than ideal, but better than £0 I guess.

Moving on, the FA Cup Third Round saw us play Ipswich, and with it a chance to get quick revenge on the Tractor Boys after a recent loss in the league. So could we get that vengeance?

Not quite. And indeed we are still yet to win an FA Cup tie after also going out in Round 3 last season. Crap.

In truth, Ipswich should've won this as although we had a decent array of chances of our own, they had more, particularly in a late rally and with a goal also somewhat harshly disallowed. But there was no way through for the Suffolk side or indeed ourselves, and as happened in 2 of our Carabao Cup ties earlier this season, penalties would be needed.

For one moment, I thought it was gonna go our way when Scott Fraser saw Ipswich's first penalty kept out. But it was a mirage, as Andi Weimann and Matty James missed the following 2 kicks and there was no way back for us. So, ya'know. Boo.

It wasn't exactly about to get easier either, given our next assignment saw us travel to play Manchester City in the 4th Round of the Carabao Cup, who in something of a multiverse bending curio have a front 3 of Gabriel Jesus, Erling Haaland and Raheem Sterling. Which… mercy?

We may have pulled off a spectacular result against Arsenal in the last round but there was no chance of that here. Man City were on it from the off and were duly 4-0 up very quickly. Indeed, it's this which is perhaps why we changed shape and rested a lot of players.

We actually did grab some goals in our defence, given that Harry Cornick and sub Saikou Janneh would grab goals for our away following to cheer. But in this one, it was no use. They were just a steamroller.

So with the fear of God in us knowing that if we achieve my goal of promotion, this is what awaits us in the next division up, we move on. Specifically, it's on to Barnsley, and the hope of getting back to winning ways. Would this be a possibility?

More than possible. Fantastic.

A single goal decided a close and hard-thought contest, which was a fine strike from Kasey Palmer just after half-time, and our defence resisted home attempts to get back level after that. So good times there.

Next up was a home game against struggling Luton, who in a curious twist of fate are now managed by John Terry.

So would we give generously to the former Chelsea star or would we plough on regardless?

Well we won. So there's that.

It did help when Luton gifted Palmer an early goal. This was more of a grind then the xG perhaps suggests but we would take chances when first Antoine Semenyo and then Matt O'Riley did the business for us.

Sub Janneh did get a first EFL goal to go with a first club competitive goal in the drubbing at the Etihad in a nice moment, though his goal was sandwiched by Luton strikes that ended our defensive line's hopes of back-to-back clean sheet bonuses.

One new thing would be noted before our next game, meanwhile, in the form of a new signing. A striker was being sought, and one was purchased, as a deal was struck to sign promising Senegalese striker Bamba Dieng for £1.5million from Marseille, split 50/50 between up-front and installments.

Next up was a trip to Hull, who curiously we are yet to beat in any of our meetings…

… and we still haven't. 

A disappointing game in truth. We simply weren't there in the first half, falling behind and struggling to create. It got better as it went on, however, with Semenyo equaliser just after the break and us having the chances to level, but we just couldn't get them in the back of the net. Which, shame.

And that ends January's fixture list, leaving a table that looks like this…

The fight for a top six place is still on. Plenty of twists and turns along the way before we see if we can stick the landing ofc.

January also saw an end to the transfer window, and some moves were made.

The last game at Hull saw us not call upon Taylor Moore, despite the centre-back arguably being our best defender so far this season, and that's because in the week between the Luton game and that one, Moore was the subject of an offer from Fulham. A deal of £5million with potential to rise to £6M subject to add-ons was agreed but had some dragged out negotiations.

On deadline day, the paperwork was duly agreed, taking Moore to London and once again seeing us lose a key player in Jan.

Having already been one defender light following Kalas' exit, this meant we had to bring in a new defender. A few unsuccessful attempts were made, including one for a highly regarded Bolton defender after they couldn't source a replacement. In the end, one would arrive, in the form of Brazilian defender Lyanco, who joins on loan for the rest of the season from Southampton.

We also recalled Liam Morrison from a loan spell in Scotland as a back-up. I'd like to think he might get a game or two before season's out.

But that's January, and while not as insane as last year's, it was still quite a busy one. Time will tell if we've made the right moves and can get this club into the Premier League, with a lot of football still to churn through until then.

In this save game, England won the World Cup. A 2-1 win over Spain in a grand final in Qatar giving the Three Lions a first World Cup in a while, and a euphoria we didn't see in real life. FM's coding alas precludes us from getting evidence of fans engaging in a supermassive binge-drinking party or where the flares are going this time.

As it is, we just get on the job with trying to get Bristol City into the Premier League. Before the World Cup finished, we still had 3 games to navigate (5 if you count 2 friendlies against local non-league sides I added for fitness).

Our first game back in action saw us welcome West Bromwich Albion, for our first encounter since they ruined our PL dreams last season by beating us in the play-offs - a tournament they duly failed to succeed in. Would we get payback?

Ah balls. So near, so far.

Inattentiveness in both halves' added time is a pretty infuriating repeat. It was bad enough when Jordan Ayew had cancelled out Harry Cornick's first half opener, but we looked to have done the job when Antoine Semenyo put us in front and WBA offered very little in response, until Leo Bonatini forced in an equaliser in the first half of stoppage time.

So, goddammit.

Next in line was a trip down the M4 west to face Swansea. Would that go any better?

Yes it would.

Taylor Moore got the only goal, nabbing one from a corner late in the first half. We could've made it better when we won a penalty which got left to Ryan Manning, a player we signed from Swansea last January, only for the left-back to not score. But one goal proved to be enough against Swansea, who blew all their best chances.

Next up was Ipswich, who have made a flying start to life back in the Championship and are in the mix for back-to-back promotions, as I managed when in charge of them in a previous FM22 career mode. Could we stop that push in its tracks and gain an upper hand ahead of our meeting in the FA Cup Third Round next month?

Nope.

We deserved six points from the last two games imo but at Ipswich, a 1-0 win was about right. Our attack were lamentably bad in the absence of a few rotated players, and we barely troubled Ipswich in the second half. Joelinton scored against us for the only goal in a game that could easily have ended 0-0 and been a fair result, but I'm allowed to be annoyed we didn't offer a lot. Losing Alex Scott for a few weeks with injury also didn't help.

Maybe things would go better on Boxing Day, when an oddly structured fixture list gave us a third straight away game in the form of a trip to Blackpool.

That's more like it. A 3-1 win, where we did enough to keep Blackpool's attack quiet. I'll take that.

The crucial moment was the restart. Having taken the lead through a smart finish by Moore at a corner, Semenyo scored an excellent goal just after the break, and then duly nabbed another one straight away afterwards.

Blackpool did get one goal back but we kept any attempt at a comeback at arms length and duly swanned off three points richer.

Our final game of 2022 would see Swansea City taken on again, as we had a quickfire double meeting with Russell Martin and the gang. Having beaten them 1-0 in Wales a few games earlier, could we see them off again?

Yes we could, and back-to-back 3-1 triumphs. Not bad.

This one would follow a different script. Swansea struck an equaliser after a defensive mistake, but barely threatened after that and ultimately looked beaten when we made it 2-1, let alone 3-1.

The day belonged to Semenyo, however, who scored a hat-trick - our first of the season, I believe, maybe first of the save, and demonstration that moving him to a central striker role has had an unexpected dividend.

This may be just as well, given Chris Martin got a season-ending broken leg in an under-23's game, and given Nahki Wells is still recovering from his own, Semenyo could well be the player we have to put all our faith in. Either that or, as January opens, we go out and buy another one for competition. Even moreso if someone gives us loadsamoney and we have to sell, as Bristol City did with Semenyo when Bournemouth brought him in January 2023 IRL.

All that to come, but first a quick look at the table at the end of December…

Our top 6 hopes remain on then. We're paying a little for our erratic form as we recalibrated following our injury crisis in attack, but only outside the play-offs on goal difference is still a half-decent place to be. Whether a 7 point deficit to the automatic spots is too much to overcome is another question.

Anyway, onwards to January. Last season, that ended up being very busy with 2 key players leaving and 5 coming in, so who knows if we're in for another window quite like that.

Despite our injury problems in attack, we did enter October still as top spot of the Championship. Staying there would however be a challenge, given we might not be able to sustain it.

The next test as to whether we could manage this would be a trip to Bedfordshire, as we played Luton Town at Kenilworth Road in our first assignment as we try and cram in games before the World Cup interrupts things.

Good stuff. Deserved to win over a Luton team who have appointed Nigel Pearson - the current real life Bristol City boss, no less - where a second half brace by Kasey Palmer did the job.

Before we continue our focus on league, we did also have one other assignment of note, as the EFL Cup produced us a trip to play Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.

We didn't exactly go in expectation so much as hoping we could blag a memorable result…

… holy shit, a memorable result!

This wasn't quite expected either. We'd opted to rotate with reserve striker Chris Martin and youngster Sam Pearson getting starts, but at half-time, we were on to something brilliant when Joe Williams poked us in front.

Rob Holding brought Arsenal back on level terms but an expected Arsenal onslaught never quite came through. Indeed we actually nearly nabbed a winner at the end, but penalties were needed instead.

A hero moment came though, as on the first round of sudden death penalties, Nuno Tavares missed the target with his kick, putting Arsenal out and ourselves into the 4th Round. Manchester City away may be a dubious award, but knocking out a Premier League giant with a reshuffled squad? Wow, I'll be very happy.

… but as is often the case in football, we followed up a big result by crashing to beatable opposition in the form of a 2-1 loss to Preston North End, who in the first time in 3 meetings didn't get a red card.

In this case, it was Preston North End. It was a fairly even game but an early goal by Daniel Johnson and a strike in the last ten by Emi Riis decided things in the home side's favour. Martin got a late goal back but we didn't really look like equalising after that.

But the games they keep on a churning, so how would we fare against last season's play-off rivals Millwall as they try to turn around their season following a slow start?

Got there in the end.

We nearly got it wrong as we took a long time to add to Martin's first-half opener, and Mason Bennett thought he'd punished us with a goal in the last 20 only for an offside flag to interrupt. Sure enough, Palmer made the most of our reprieve later on.

This was the first of two home games in a row as we try to get back a little momentum, with our next assignment seeing Blackburn Rovers make the trip to Bristol. Back-to-back wins in coming?

Not quite. Indeed this 2-0 reverse is our first home loss since we were beaten by Bournemouth by the same score just over a year prior.

Ultimately, we had ourselves to blame, missing the best chances we got, offering little in response to a Harry Pickering free-kick that swept into the back of the net, conceded again in added time, and were beaten. Infuriating, but that's football sometimes.

A trip to Birmingham City was next, taking on a team now under the charge of Mikel Arteta after he was binned by Arsenal with the team in a relegation battle. So could we get the train back on track?

Maybe Arteta was underrated on FM22. Or maybe we made him look good by conceding an early goal to Troy Deeney, barely attacking after that, and conceding at the end.

3 defeats in 4 then. Very much not a record that will get us promoted if this carries on.

Could we arrest our slump in our trip to QPR the following weekend?

Talk about a dramatic way to get things back into shape, no?

This had been a fairly even game but it wasn't quite going to plan as we approached the final 20 minutes. Neeskens Kebano had equalised to cancel out an early QPR goal, only for Ilias Chair - who scored when we lost there last season - to put us behind again in the opening minutes of the second half.

It then threatened to get away from us, however, as Taylor Moore was shown a second yellow card and duly dismissed. Hopes of any points probably would've evaporated had Jake Clarke-Salter's goal from the free-kick given after Moore's dismissal been allowed, given an offside flag was duly thrown up.

We reshuffled to a 3-4-1-1 as an approach in response, and it already looked like it might work better when Harry Cornick scored an equaliser. But then Antoine Semenyo made it even better for us with a goal right at the end of normal time, giving us an extraordinary win.

Would we sign off for the international break with two wins in a row by seeing off Reading?

Nope. Reading in truth were the better side, and we could've fallen behind on multiple occasions. But as it is, the defence held firm and a 0-0 was duly reached.

So that ends our first part of the season, given the World Cup is about to start.

Given our ambition for the season is just to finish mid-table, 6th is a very credible spot to be in, given back-to-back play-off spots would be a half-decent result.

We've got a month to figure things out as to how we can get ourselves back in the automatic promotion chase, or at least keep those who want to swipe our top six spots at bay. So we'll figure it out from there.

September begins for us with the Carabao Cup, where we made the trip north to face Blackburn Rovers in the tournament's second round after surviving a scare against Notts County in the previous round.

So, would we do the business more efficiently this time around?

It would appear so.

Liam Delap put Blackburn ahead after Nathan Baker conceded an early penalty, but we responded brilliantly. A double by Neeskens Kebano and a strike by Harry Cornick saw our double attacking signing made last January come up with the goods, and in turn, saw us through. Blackburn did have a goal back but in truth, their chances to equalise were OK to deal with.

So that's round 3 sorted, and quite the glamour tie in wait, which will be a trip to Premier League side Arsenal. That however will have to wait a few weeks.

First, the matter of continuing our strong start to the Championship season. Next up is a Severnside Derby match against our local rivals Cardiff City, reprising a game we won 4-0 in the early part of last season. So could we inflict similar humiliation on our cross-channel rivals again?

Not quite.

Should really have won, happy our defence did the job when they needed to, but annoyed our attack couldn't find a breakthrough.

So let's move on. Next up after that was a home contest against Barnsley at Ashton Gate, bringing us in for a clash against one of the other sides whose promotion ambitions came unstuck in last season's play-offs.

Would this game get us back on the right track?

Eventually, yes.

Barnsley made a roaring start. A foul by Ryan Manning gave away a penalty but Max O'Leary won the battle of wits with Cauley Woodrow, only to be beaten by Ryan Williams anyway.

But that woke us up. Antoine Semenyo grabbed a quickfire equaliser, before Cornick and Taylor Moore would strike later in the half.

No goals were added after the break, but this was a job well done. An injury to Cornick that will keep him out for a bit is an unfortunate bit of collateral damage, but we'll just have to manage it from there.

All we can do is duly move on, starting up next with a trip to face Brentford as we play the third of last season's relegated teams, having already faced and indeed beaten Southampton and Crystal Palace.

Would the Bees meet the same fate?

Yeah, not quite. But defeat isn't the worst part of that…

Losing Cornick at the weekend was bad enough, but to then lose Kasey Palmer to a knock limited our options further. Then we lost Semenyo to another injury that will keep him out for a while as what already felt like enough salt in the wound, until this blow. Wells, our top scorer, captain and main threat so far this season is going to be out for a huge chunk of the remainder. A huge blow and one that I coulda done without, not least as I'm already irritated he skipped town on our play-off second leg last season to go play for Bermuda.

We were the better side at Brentford, but couldn't take our chances and just seemed to run out of ideas when Wells' injury necessitated another position switch in the attacking area. Frank Onyeka scored the winner, handing us our second defeat of the season - the other of which also came in London - and leaves us wondering where we go from here.

Push on we must, however, and a teamsheet was cobbled together for the visit of Hull City, who we didn't beat in either game last season…

… and who we didn't beat this time either.

Ultimately this was one where we had to blame ourselves again. We had the momentum burst of an early goal through Matt O'Riley, pushed forward due to the myriad absences, only for Keane Lewis-Potter to equalise. Momentum then seemed back in our hands after Alex Scott gave us the advantage again just before half-time, only for us to concede within a minute of the restart, and we duly missed some excellent chances to win after that.

If nothing else this gives plenty to ponder as we approach a very busy October, as we get through the next run of games before that World Cup hiatus. Considering the Championship table as we prepare to embark on the last seven league games before Qatar, plus the small matter of a cup tie at the Emirates Stadium, we are in…

… top spot at the 11 game mark.

If nothing else, we have quite the initial platform to be building from. Top of the league after 11 games and Championship high-scores is quite the demonstration that so far this season, there's clearly no play-off hangover.

Managing the injury issues in attack and fitness of those still on call is another question, however, not least as an admin error means young prospect Saikou Janneh, who is over 21 but wasn't registered, can't be called on. So we shall see how we adapt accordingly.

The season had started well for this little project, with Bristol City winning on the opening day with that win over Coventry at Ashton Gate.

Now for the challenge of actually keeping such a run going. First of all was a distraction in the form of the season's first cup tie, as we took on Notts County in the play-offs in the Magpies' first game back in the competition after finally getting out of the National League.

How would we fare?

Got there in the end I guess.

Just before the half-hour mark, Notts County took a shock lead through Alex Lacy, and with time running out, it looked like we might be about to miss the boat and suffer a humiliating reverse until League 2 opposition.

That was until Matt O'Riley intervened, coming off the bench to grab an equaliser with 5 minutes remaining, and we still missed chances from there to win. An expected goals of 3 indicates we could've done a lot more from there.

What then followed was an almighty penalty shootout. Each side scored their first 10 penalties, and then it seemed like Notts County had match point when our back-up goalkeeper Conor Hazard had his kick saved by Sam Slocombe, only for Hazard to in-turn also deny Slocombe.

On and on we went for a few more kicks until Fred Vincent was the man with the short straw, missing Notts' County's 14th penalty to decide the shootout at 13-12 in our favour, and booking us a second round trip to Blackburn Rovers, but also perhaps giving everyone the chance to sigh in relief that it was finally over.

We'll breath a sigh of relief that we avoided a cup upset, then move on to another game where on paper we are favourites, as we travel to face last season's League One play-off winners Burton Albion.

Our positive start continues. A fairly low quality game but we did the business in the moments that mattered, with Nathan Baker and Nahki Wells scoring first half goals, a second hand fightback kept to a minimum, bosh, thank you, next.

As it was, next on paper looked harder, as we hosted Crystal Palace, bringing along the first of last season's relegated sides and one that still look a danger, given the likes of Zaha, Eze, Edouard and a few other Premier League level talents are still about.

This could be a bit of a statement result.

Many expect Palace to be promotion challengers as they seek to avenge their drop, but we did so well in this one. Wells gave us the lead, one-time Norwich loanee Xavi Quintilla took advantage of mistake to smash home a leveller, but we took the lead again through Tomas Kalas, and duly managed the game from there.

Palace could be aggrieved as Mateta had a late equaliser disallowed for offside - no VAR review here ofc - and from there, we were able to keep ourselves in front. Big result.

With 3 wins out of 3 in the Championship to start off the new season, we are in a good place so far, and could make it 4/4 if we were to see off the challenge of Nottingham Forest, who have invested big and also made a bright start. So, how would this contest go?

A game of tight margins ended up being resolved in our favour. Huzzah.

Saying that, had this finished a draw from a game where we were 3-0 up at half-time, I'd have been pretty furious. We crushed the first half, and deservedly lead 3-0 at the break when Andreas Weimann and a Wells double gave us such a lead.

We then seemed to just take our foot off the gas after that, however. Much of the second half drifted by, and there were some nerves when Junior Stanislas poked in with less than 10 to go. Ultimately Forest ran out of time but van Hecke's goal in added time did have us begging for the full-time whistle, and giving stuff to ponder.

One big net result however is that with four games gone of the season so far…

… top of the league. Nice.

Sure, it'll be a better achievement if we top the Championship table on game 46 than after game 4, but it's nice to see it.

In a division as relentless as this, all we can do is try to keep this positive vibe going, and to do that, we travel next to London to face Charlton Athletic.

Alright, that didn't go to plan.

A frustrating trip to The Valley in the end, given that we were the better team for much of the game, failed to beat their keeper, and were duly punished when Jayden Stockley got a late tap-in to win the game for the side promoted from League One last season. Balls.

Would we be in for similar misfortune a few days later on our trip to face Huddersfield Town and continue a slide down from the early summit?

Scratch that. A brilliant result at the John Smith's Stadium was achieved and we can say 4 wins out of 5 is an ace start.

This was a game where our former Huddersfield players did damage, as one-time Terriers forward Wells and ex-Huddersfield loanee Kasey Palmer each bagged a brace, as part of an attacking unit that frankly put in some corking football and left them no chance to escape with a point.

We did fail to keep a clean sheet again, as Bright Enobakhare scored a lovely late goal, but by then the game was ours.

August wrapped up with one more Championship game in a relentless month of football as they try to crowbar in a lot before our month off for the World Cup, and this final assignment was a choice one, bringing Southampton to Ashton Gate in another contest against a team that was in last season's Premier League. So how would we fare?

Rather well.

This was a fine, end-to-end game with lots to recommend it. Sadly our keeper Max O'Leary didn't cover himself in glory, arguably being at fault for Nathan Tella's opener and thinking more may have been done to stop Nathan Redmond putting Southampton back in front. O'Riley had continued his fine start to the season with a goal in-between.

But in the second half, we ended up doing the business. Taylor Moore brought us back on level terms, and less than 2 minutes later, sub Antoine Semenyo cued up Wells for a tap-in, continuing his excellent start to the season and putting us in front for the first time.

Stunned by that, Southampton offered little response, and another win was ours.

Now alas I forgot to photo the table and played on, so an update will come at the end of September after another four Championship games, but we are still top.

Obviously asking us to keep this up through to the end of the season is a tall order, but it's so far so good.

Deadline day was quite, meanwhile - few reserves being loaned out, but no first team movement. Stoke made an offer for Taylor Moore that we rejected, but that was about it.

So onwards and seeing if this project to get Premier League football to Bristol is still on.

Our first campaign at Ashton Gate was ultimately a case of so near yet so far. Absolutely a sign we can do well given we managed to get into the play-offs with a squad many expected to be lower midtable at best, but still a kicker that when we got to that skirmish, we just couldn't dispose of West Bromwich Albion.

The board expectation for season 2 is, somewhat surprisingly, content with midtable. For that end, however, I actually have a smaller budget than what I had to play with after selling Daniel Bentley and Jay Dasilva in January, meaning our hopes of more cash rest on high-end sales.

Coming into the season, however, our blue-chip players like Han-Noah Massengo, Alex Scott, Kasey Palmer, Nahki Wells and Antoine Semenyo did not attract bids - Semenyo had a sniff from Premier League Watford without a tangible offer - so they're all still here.

We do however have two options in the squad. Defender Taylor Moore is regarded as being at least as good as the centre-backs we already had, and is back from a loan spell with Scottish side Hearts. Our other new signing is a player who is currently playing in Scotland in the form of Matt O'Riley, who in real world January 2022 joined Celtic from MK Dons and has impressed. O'Riley was still in Milton Keynes, however, so we picked him up for the decent fee of £600k, rising to £1M subject to add-ons.

The most noteworthy first team exits, meanwhile, were Andy King and Callum O'Dowda, who left on frees upon contract expiry. A few youth teamers left, including a midfielder I had no need for that joined MK Dons a few days after I bought O'Riley in a separate non p/ex deal.

All of which means the squad is now regarded as looking like this…

No real different to what I had at the end of last season then, with the possible exception of Moore coming up as an option as depth in centre-back.

In truth I didn't feel a big rebuild was yet necessary. Though this campaign may be a lead to a rebuild in a season to come because…

… we have a lot of players out of contract at the end of the season, including some of my two hearners in Palmer, Kalas and Wells, as well as Manning, who only signed an 18 month deal when we signed him from Swansea in January.

The pre-season expectation meanwhile last season saw us predicted to come 14th but we instead finished 9 places higher. So are we interpreted as on to a campaign where we can finish higher?

Not quite. Though by that logic of finishing 9 places higher, we could well win the league… I wish, anyway.

The new-look Championship sees the names Bournemouth, Fulham and Sheffield United disappear, with the promoted trio replaced by Southampton, Crystal Palace and Brentford. Meanwhile, the relegated trio of Derby, Peterborough and Stoke are turfed out, making way for Ipswich, Charlton and Burton, and we have to play all six early on in this World Cup-bisected season in a curious twist of fate.

Pre-season meanwhile looked like this

Some reasonable preparations - beat League 1 newboys Northampton and non-league Solihull when we returned, had some comfortable wins during a training camp in the South of France, but then got held to a frustrating draw with Oxford United and then the perhaps unsurprising defeat by Man City (a late replacement as Leicester and Spurs cancelled on us).

Anyway, that's the return to business conducted. Matchday one is an interesting one as we welcome Coventry City, with Chris Hughton's side the first of a variety of tests we shall endure to try and prove we can reach the Premier League jackpot.

So, how would we fare with our starter?

That is a very handy start.

We shaded a tight first half but Neeskens Kebano's goal just before half-time really lit a rocket under us. After the break it was pretty much all Bristol City pressure and goals by debutant O'Riley and one by substitute Kasey Palmer extended our lead.

The Palmer goal lead to a crazy busy period, as Callum O'Hare pulled one back, Palmer got a second, then Viktor Gyokeres scored another one for the Sky Blues.

It still added up to an opening day win for us, however, and in a slightly more eventful manner than the 2-1 we managed over Blackpool in our opening assignment last season.

Now for all the other ridiculous challenges lying in wait.

The play-offs then. That unusual skirmish that pits 3rd-6th in the Championship one another for the chance to become Premier League whipping boys (at least that's how some more cynical types see it).

This one has slight contrasts. West Brom and Sheffield United are bidding for instant returns to the Premier League, meanwhile Barnsley last played in the Premier League in 1998, and we're bidding to end Bristol City's wait for a top tier spot that stretches back to 1980, a time when of course the top tier had yet to divorce itself from the Football League and become a monster.

Our ties are against West Brom, where the score was 1-1 in our regular season meetings. We lost 1-0 at The Hawthorns while we were still transitioning to the 4-2-3-1 we have since sworn by, and had certainly adjusted to by the time of our 3-1 win at Ashton Gate.

Game one came in Bristol, and it was on us to try and gain some kind of advantage to take into the trip up the M5 a few days later.

Big game then. How would it pan out?

Hmmm… the springboard is there but this could've been so much more.

We fell behind to misfortune when Matty James scored an own goal just after we'd missed a glorious chance, but persisted and broke through when Nahki Wells turned in an Antoine Semenyo cross.

Most of the game, I'd say we were likelier to find a breakthrough, but it wasn't to be.

This means that in order to get to Wembley, it'll all hinge on whether or not we can take a victory at The Hawthorns. Not something I'd be especially confident about, but needs must.

Still, the stage is set for us to try and perform. Would we do it?

Not this time, and it's another season in the Championship for us. Balls.

So, this was a compromised job off the bat. Without noting, Wells and Kasey Palmer both disappeared to go on international duty as part of the North American version of the UEFA Nations League, which - so uncool. Ryan Manning getting an injury didn't help either, although his poor performance in the first leg means I can't say I'm irritated that much.

While the first leg had lots of creativity and decent plays, this was a tighter, scrappier affair. One goal decided it, as West Brom full-back Daryl Horgan squeezed the ball past Max O'Leary from the edge of the box, and that was enough for West Brom to book a meeting with Sheffield United at Wembley.

What a shame but nevermind.

I guess we'll just have to rebuild in the Championship and figure it out from there. But before we get on with it, here is a presentation of our best 11.

So that concludes season 1, where we did our best and got so near but so far to the ultimate goal of this season, which is getting Bristol City into the Premier League.

Better luck next time then.

Just three games left of the season and our push to get ourselves a spot in the play-off picture.

Unfortunately, for drama purposes, we don't have a big decisive summit against Barnsley and Millwall, with our final assignments being against teams with relatively little to play for.

First up were Derby, for whom the 21 point deduction ended the season before it had even really begun and they will descend into League One with nary a whimper.

Could we add some more points to our tally here?

Assignment one, tick.

Not necessarily the most convincing display of work, but we were in a 2-0 lead at the break thanks to Kasey Palmer and then Nahki Wells, with Zak Vyner having had a goal disallowed in-between.

Derby actually gave it a good go - they had a higher xG at the end, and a higher number of shots, but Wayne Rooney's side couldn't beat Max O'Leary, and we held out to take the points.

Mid-table Hull City were next along, in our final home game of the regular season and a chance for us to seal that top six spot.

Not quite.

Try as we might, we just couldn't break the door down. Hull City managed to frustrate us successfully, and they return to Yorkshire with an extra point while we have to get a win on the final day at Huddersfield to be absolutely sure a top six finish will be ours.

Going into the final day, the table does take on an intriguing complexion…

Results elsewhere do mean that ourselves, Millwall and Barnsley find ourselves all level on points going into the final game of the season. Barnsley had been a long way clear at one point but a collapse in form in April - including a heavy defeat to Millwall at The Den - has seen both ourselves and the Lions jump ahead of them.

They however have the more difficult final day assignments. Millwall have a final day visit to Bournemouth, who still need a win to stave off Fulham and secure the title, while Barnsley are at West Brom, who will likely rotate given they can't be caught by us or catch 3rd place Sheffield United, but might well see this as a chance to get their range in for the play-offs.

So, Huddersfield Town away, final game of the season. Would we grab a play-off spot?

That was that.

One goal was enough on the day, as Harry Cornick converted Antoine Semenyo's cross. Huddersfield provided very little threat to us, so we were able to avoid that and while there may be a little regret we didn't get the second goal that would've fully settled the nerves, we did the job.

So that brings an end to the regular season. My suspicion was that a win would've been enough to bag a play-off position. Would it?

We're in. 5th place is an excellent finish - it's 12 places higher than the real Bristol City managed in 2021-22, with 24 more points in the fold.

The other place ended up chopping around in a different sense. Barnsley had begun outside the top six and lost at West Brom, but by a smaller margin than Millwall, who were demolished by Bournemouth as their play-off dreams went up in smoke.

So that's the main bulk of the campaign done. Both Bournemouth and Fulham broke the 100 point mark, but it was Bournemouth who wrapped up that contest, with Sheffield United, West Brom, ourselves and Barnsley as the top six, ahead of a litany of fancied sides (including, it's worth noting, 3 of the teams that actually made last season's play offs, with Luton and Huddersfield coming nowhere near matching their real world counterparts).

Derby's 21 point deduction saw them sink without a trace - they failed to even reach double digits, though still would've come last with them. Peterborough returned to League One but perhaps the big disappearance is Stoke, who just 4 years on from their 2018 relegation out of the Premier League fall a step further below.

We meanwhile have another assignment as a coda to this season.

Two or three games to decide a spot in the Premier League then. Difficult opposition, no doubt, but there's no such thing as an easy game in the play-offs. So let's see what happens next.