Johnson Looks To The Future After Season Finale

Sunday, May 7th 2017

Lee Johnson was keen to look to the future after City’s five-match unbeaten run came to an end on the final day of a roller coaster Sky Bet Championship season at Ashton Gate.

Visitors Birmingham City needed to defy the odds and win to preserve their second tier status with relegation rivals Blackburn Rovers and Nottingham Forest both picking up victories of their own.

Ultimately, Che Adams’ 16th-minute goal was enough for Blues in front of 25,404 spectators in BS3 – City’s highest home league crowd for 37 years.

“The support today was definitely something to be proud of,” Johnson told Bristol City Player HD.

“I was proud of the players in one way, because we kept going right to the end in what was a difficult game due to what was riding on it for Birmingham.

“I’m quite frustrated. You have to give credit to Birmingham for the way they killed the game, particularly after they scored, but it was happening from 30 minutes into the game.

“I’ve just looked at the ball in play and I feel sorry for the fans because it was a lot less than what we would expect.

“We’d already done the job but I wanted to win and I hate losing, so I’ve still got that wrench in my stomach.

“But now we settle, we move into the future and look at the bigger picture, which is that we went on a fantastic run to survive and we finished a place up on what we did last year.

“We’ve got a lot of players who have now bedded into the Championship and that’ll stand us in really good stead moving forward.

“I genuinely see progress. Off the field, many departments are improving and on the field we’ve had some good runs. I’ve apologised for the bad run, but we’re going to crack on and not mention that again.

“We want to do everything we can to keep improving. It’s a tough, tough league as you see with two recent Premier League clubs going down, but we’ll relish it and enjoy it again next season.”