SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 24: James Beadle of Sheffield Wednesday during the Sky Bet Championship match between Sheffield Wednesday and Bristol City at Hillsborough on February 24, 2024 in Sheffield, England. (Photo by Ben Roberts Photo/Getty Images)
Bristol City manager on ‘best he’s seen’ Sheffield Wednesday man – made him change plans.
Sheffield Wednesday came away from Bristol City on Wednesday evening with a hard-earned point – their first on the road since Danny Röhl arrived at the club.
Bristol City boss Liam Manning singled out Sheffield Wednesday centre-half Di’Shon Bernard for praise following their goalless draw at Ashton Gate – saying his performance altered his decision-making when making a second half substitution.
Bustling forward Sinclair Armstrong is no stranger to the Owls having played his part in a gruesome battle with Bambo Diaby in the colours of QPR in the latter stages of last season. A touch under six months on, it was Bernard that stepped up to stamp out his threat with a stunning performance. Where many Robins supporters expected to see six-foot-four two-in-five new boy Fally Mayulu to come on in his place, Manning switched his plans to send on the more diminutive Nakhi Wells.
“I think he was terrific physically, Bernard,” Manning said post-match. “It’s the best physical match-up I’ve seen against Sincs and it doesn’t happen too often. So we changed tact and brought Nakhi in, he’s really bright with his movement and he got into some half-decent areas, it nearly came off.
“If you look at pace and power, although it pinned them back, it wasn’t working at the start of the second half. For me, rather than match-up with pace and power – that was their game – we went with a little intelligence with Nakhi in terms of his movement.”
Manning expressed his shock at City fans booing his side at the final whistle of the stalemate. Where the Owls had played West Brom on Saturday, his side had played out a battling draw at Swansea City a day later and given the extra day’s rest, he felt the emergence of Wednesday in the second half was entirely understandable.
“Especially with the extra day recovery that they had on us, I thought it was a good performance,” he continued. “Swansea was a really physical day for us on Sunday and they’ve got the extra day recovery. Naturally I think it caught up on us a tiny bit in the second half but I think the defensive side tonight was good.
“First half I think we were outstanding with the ball, we played in good areas, we really pinned them back and had really good control. Second half, look, it’s difficult at this level to dominate a game for 95 minutes. Naturally second half they had a little bit, we had a little bit.”
