Albert's Ghana play in the World Cup!

Bristol City’s flying winger Albert Adomah has indicated that he fancies playing for Ghana in the 2014 World Cup campaign.

Adomah, 23, was born in London and played for Barnet before moving to the Robins last summer and has dual nationality. Albert proved himself at Championship level last season and gave a number of defenders headaches when I saw him play. He’s still not the finished article, but has stacks of pace and trickery. From what I saw he still needs to improve on his final ball and decision making, but they are things that come with maturity.

Former Liverpool and Newcastle midfielder Didi Hamann has now been linked with the vacant manager’s job at Swindon. The former German international is currently employed in a coaching capacity at Leicester City and joins Paolo di Canio, Paul Buckle, George Burley, Paul Trollope, my mum and numerous others in the running for the job. Meanwhile defender Michael Rose looks to be off to Colchester. The 28 year old former Stockport defender joined from Stockport last summer and was fuming earlier in the season when Danny Wilson dropped him to the bench after the arrival of Alan Sheehan. He told me: “I didn’t come to Swindon to sit on the bench – not at my age.” It looks as though he won’t be hanging around for more of the same treatment.

Bristol Rovers are also in for Buckle once his play-off involvement with Torquay is over.

Oxford boss Chris Wilder has signed Eastbourne Town’s Ryan James, a 21 year old central defender. James played youth football for both Millwall and QPR. James combined playing for Eastbourne with work for the Nike Academy which helps young players join professional clubs. He has been given a six month deal.

Bristol City 2 Portsmouth 1 - Run on

City brought Pompey’s six game unbeaten streak to a halt and in the process extended their own run ‘on’ to four games.

My clipping from this morning’s copy of The Sun

I had a quiet chat with Keith Millen after the game and he is now looking up the table for the first time this season rather than sweating on how many teams are chasing City. I think it’s fair to say that this was the game that effectively sealed Championship survival.

Earlier in the season I found myself in the uncomfortable situation of having to ask Keith how he was coping with the pressure as City lurched from one poor result to another. At that point in the season, Millen and City were at a crossroads. He had been with the club in a coaching capacity for some time and seen managers come and go after similar spells. So how was he coping?

Keith is one of the game’s good guys and politely handled questions even though you knew that he’d rather be anywhere else.

“I’m a fighter,” he told me. “I believe we can get ourselves out of this situation.”

In the car park I had a chat with one of the players who told me that Keith had their full support and they really believed that they’d be able to turn things around.

To both Keith’s credit and that of the players, they have.

Millen still wants to reach the fifty or fifty-two point safety mark as soon as possible, but realistically it’s now all about finishing the season on a high and putting themselves in the right frame of mind as they start to prepare for next season.

Of course diehard Robins will tell you that they are still in with a shout of a play-off place and it is certainly a possibility, but how many felt that they would be struggling to stay up during those dark early season days?

Now they have a team that is full of self-belief and players who look like they could beat anyone – they’re also playing some nice stuff.

The return of striker Nicky Maynard from long term injury has also given them another dimension, but it would be unfair on the rest of the lads to point to his return as reason for their change in fortunes as they have all been contributing and have been doing so for some time.

Millen heaped praise on his team after the game and said:

"I'm so proud of my players. Some of them have gone through the pain barrier and done everything and more than I asked of them to beat a very good Portsmouth side. They are full of players with Premier League experience, were full of confidence after a great six-match winning run and showed that in the way they played.

We've had to hang on in there, scrap and fight for every ball and defend for our lives, but the lads have shown incredible fighting spirit and an amazing will to win and I'm really pleased with them. This was a big, big test for the lads and they've come through it with flying colours."

Pompey boss Steve Cotterill shrugged off the defeat and said:

“If we were to losing to anyone, City would be one of those sides. Keith Millen is an honest and hard working guy and has done a great job here. There won’t be many teams who come here and football them like we did. We were better – but just didn’t stick the ball in the back of the net.

We were fitter and stronger, we passed the ball better. ‘The only thing we fell down on was they scored two and we’ve scored one. That’s the only thing we fell down on. All the other aspects of football I thought we were superb, absolutely superb.



Bristol City 2 Derby County 0 - Matador

Christian Ribeiro and I had a brief chat after the game on Saturday and he admitted that City were fortunate to have kept eleven men on the field after David James had cut down Kris Commons – but pointed out that they had also had their fair share of bad luck.

Wales defender Ribeiro, 20, gave an honest assessment and said:

“As David rushed out I was thinking ‘don’t take him out’ as I was sprinting back to cover, but to be frank I don’t think I would have made it. We were lucky David was only shown a yellow card, but decisions were going against us earlier in the season and so I guess it shows that our luck has changed.”

There is no doubt about that, but you often make your own luck in life and City have worked hard to change their fortunes and are reaping the rewards having lost only one of the last nine. The problem is that the division is so tight; they need to maintain this form to stay away from the scrap at the bottom.

Looking at the situation from a ‘glass half full‘ perspective though; if they do manage to continue this form, the play-off places are within their grasp as well.

If they are to keep the momentum going they also need the whole squad to pull in the same direction and in Jamaica central defender Damion Stewart they have men with the right attitude. Stewart was signed from QPR by former boss Steve Coppell in the summer and two weeks later saw the former Reading boss quit.

After City’s dodgy start to the season Stewart was dropped but said:

“Keith Millen is the gaffer. He’s the boss and I told him from day one that he had my full support even when I wasn’t in the side. I was used to playing every week at QPR and so it was a new experience having to wait for the opportunity to get back in. I kept my head down and worked hard and now that I’m back in the team, hopefully I can continue to show what I can do.”

Brett Pitman scored a brace to take his tally to five goals in three games to show why the Robins paid £800k to Bournemouth for his services, but the stand-out player for me was former Barnet winger Albert Adomah who – like Pitman – was signed from the lower divisions and showed he too has what it takes by setting up both goals.

Pitman was fully appreciative of Adomah’s contribution, but preferred to spread the praise about and said: “He played in a couple of great balls, but everyone is working hard, running hard and filling in for each other. We work a lot on shape in training and while the players don’t like it and find it boring, it certainly pays off during the games.”

Nigel Clough was understandably furious with the decision not to send off James, but – unlike some managers – didn’t lash out at the officials. He said: “At the start of the season we have to attend a meeting with the referees where they show us videos of incidents from around the world to explain how decisions are made. If we don’t turn up we’re fined. If we complain about the referee we’re fined.”

I spotted Clough going into the referee’s room for a chat once the obligatory thirty minute cooling off period had expired and he was in there for a good fifteen minutes while his players crowded around a laptop in the corridor outside studying a DVD.

Watching it with them, it was obvious that Ribeiro was right and James was the last man and James should have walked. Commons had knocked the ball away from goal though in an effort to get past the keeper and I suspect that this was the referee’s defence. However, to suggest that a player of Commons caliber couldn’t have reached it and knocked the ball into the net is also daft. The rules definitely need clarifying here.

I also wondered whether the referee felt a little intimidated by the fact that it was the former England number one he faced red carding and reluctant to do so and be accused of trying to make a name for himself. We’ll probably never know, but Ribeiro was right, Bristol City rode their luck with that incident. Then again, maybe it was time they had it on their side.

The highlight of the day in the Press Box was when one of the radio commentators described midfielder Alberto Bueno – on loan from Valladolid – as gesticulating in Spanish. I’m still trying to work that one out. Maybe I missed him doing an impression of an angry matador!

My clippings from this morning's copy of The Sun

The Sun’s football website: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football