BRISTOL City chairman Steve Lansdown has insisted the Robins are not in the Coca-Cola Championship to “make up the numbers” and will invest in the club until they reach the top.
Speaking ahead of the visit of big-spending Queens Park Rangers today, whose new owners Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone have vowed to take them back to the top tier, Lansdown was not shy about his own aspirations – including the new stadium.
He said: “We want to play at the highest possible level with the best possible facilities and that’s what I’m going to work towards, and that’s what Gary (Johnson) is going to work towards, as well.
“We have our own plan of how we go about doing things. That’s not going to change. We go about our job quietly but efficiently.
“If you look at the record over the last however many years, there’s been constant investment in the football club, and that’s all you can ask for. We are working on opportunities to take the club forward and we’re there to compete (with the likes of QPR).
“We’re not there to just make up the numbers. The idea is to progress as much as we possibly can.
“The stadium is progressing satisfactorily. It’s a long process, so there are no sudden announcements to make.
“It’s on target at the moment and that’s all I can really say. There are lots of difficult decisions to be made and we are working our way through those.”
Lansdown was particularly proud of the way Johnson’s team have started this year’s Championship campaign, showing no signs of “second-season syndrome”, despite their opponents having a much better knowledge of the Robins’ tactics and armoury.
He said: “That’s our challenge this year. They may know about us but can they stop us playing? I think we showed against Coventry and in the first half against Derby that, if we play our football at the tempo at which we play it and in the manner we play it, it takes good teams to live with us.
“You just don’t know how a season’s going to pan out. You’re in that situation where you’ve had a great year. You’ve almost had the success you desired or could hardly have imagined at the start of the previous season, and then you have to start all over again. That’s always a difficult thing to do and I think full credit to everyone at the club.
“The game away to Blackpool was probably one of the biggest games we’ll ever have. We knew we’d have to go there and battle, and to come away with three points was a great fillip and that’s set us up quite nicely.
“But we can’t get carried away; we’ve only played three League games. Reading would have said they weren’t suffering from second-season syndrome in the Premiership last year after three games, but it caught up with them in the end. There’s a lot of work to do.”
Meanwhile, Ebsfleet United striker John Akinde is expected to complete a move to Ashton Gate over the weekend. City are understood to have had a bid in the region of £140,000 accepted for the highly-rated 19-year-old. The decison to sell Akinde has to be voted on by the club’s 29,000 shareholders with the results expected to be known late last night.
The transfer, however, looks likely to recieve the go-ahead with City beating off competition from Millwall and Peterborough United.
Posh boss Darren Ferguson said last night: “John rang me to say he had decided to join Bristol.
“He said it was a football decision based purely on the chance to play at a higher level.
“I’m disappointed because we were chasing him for a long time and I am convinced he would have been a great signing for us.”
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