Johnson Hails ‘Wilbrahimovic’ Effect

Aaron Wilbraham celebrated his 37th birthday yesterday and had his family in the 21,000-plus crowd to witness his 88th-minute winner against Blackburn Rovers.

The head coach declared City’s first-half performance “poor”, but believes his team were worthy victors based on their second-half showing.

“I’ve stolen ‘Wilbrahimovic’ off Twitter – it makes me chuckle every time I see it,” Johnson told Bristol City Player HD.

“He’s got a really important part to play, both in the dressing room and on the pitch, and that’s why we gave him another year.

“I thought when he came on he got hold of it, brought people into play and made experienced decisions, which is what we need. I’m delighted for him

“It’s a fantastic win because we’ve just had two losses and we needed it.

“We had 21,000 Bristol City fans here today and I’m delighted with that. I really felt the pressure to get a win for everybody and I thought in the second half our performance was fully deserving of it.

“I think the crowd believe and that’s important, because they keep encouraging the players to drive forward.

“We were poor in the first half. We’ve got this trait at the moment of not coming out of the blocks anywhere near as quickly as we should.

“We have got a lot of footballers who need time and space, and the game does open up later on, but somehow we have to find a way of putting teams on the back foot early.

“We’ve got to remember it’s still a really new group. Korey Smith came in today and played with six or seven players he hasn’t played with before, but I thought he was excellent.”