Bristol City

Nick Mashiter
Football reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Bristol City are poised to appoint former Notts County and Forest Green boss Ian Burchnall as Michael Skubala's assistant manager.

The Robins are also trying to bring QPR first-team coach Steve Bould to Ashton Gate as Skubala looks to finalise his backroom team.

Boss Skubala joined the Robins last month after leaving Lincoln, having guided the Imps to the League One title as they returned to the second tier for the first time in 65 years.

Lincoln assistants Chris Cohen and Tom Shaw were made joined head coaches and did not follow him to Ashton Gate.

Burchnall was close to being appointed Rotherham manager last month, having worked under the Millers' new head of football Steve McClaren with the Jamaica national side last year.

He was most recently first-team coach at Aberdeen under interim boss Peter Leven last season.

Burchnall was also assistant manager at Belgian side Anderlecht before a spell at Wolves under Gary O'Neil.

He has managed Notts County and Forest Green and he has also taken charge of Viking and Ostersund - where he succeeded Graham Potter - in Scandinavia.

Former Arsenal defender Bould, who also spent seven years coaching at the Gunners under Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery, has been with QPR for a year.

Nick Mashiter
Football reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Tommy Elphick rejected a move to Bristol City as he assesses his long-term future options.

The Bournemouth assistant was offered the job at the Robins, which would have been his first role in senior management.

But with the situation at the Cherries fluid, with Marco Rose replacing Andoni Iraola, sources have told BBC Sport Elphick is carefully considering his next move.

The 38-year-old has held positive talks with Rose, with the former RB Leipzig manager taking over on a three-year deal.

If the offer from Bristol City had come a few weeks later, with a clearer picture at Bournemouth, Elphick may have accepted the role.

There were positive talks with the Robins, with Elphick impressed with its personnel and the club's plans.

They finished 12th in the Championship this season and are looking for a permanent manager after ex-England boss Roy Hodgson was appointed on an interim basis in March following the dismissal of Gerhard Struber.

It was a reluctant decision but one he took with a potential career crossroads in front of him.

He helped Iraola guide the Cherries into Europe for the first time this season, finishing sixth in the Premier League to seal a Europa League place.

Iraola stepped down after three years in charge, with talks over a new deal unsuccessful despite the Cherries' desire to keep him.

Former defender Elphick made 145 appearances for Bournemouth, having signed from Brighton in 2012, to help them rise from League One to the Premier League.

He left in 2016 to join Aston Villa and also played for Reading, Hull City and Huddersfield Town.

Richard Angell
Fan writer

Image source, Shutterstock

Here is a prediction for Bristol City's final league position in 2026-27 season - we will probably finish 12th.

There comes a point when supporting your football club when you stop asking whether the team is good enough to go up or bad enough to go down.

Instead you start asking yourself, 'what on earth is the point of this?' You question the financial cost and also why bother if you are not enjoying your team being just average?

So why, and how, do you arrive at this point? It is not because you stopped loving your club - that never leaves you.

Bristol City supporters are passionate - we follow our team by travelling thousands of miles and spend a lot of our hard-earned cash alongside our emotional investment.

The oldest ones amongst us know what it feels like when we nearly did not have a club (1982) and remain thankful to those who made huge personal and financial sacrifices to ensure we still have one.

We still convince ourselves every August that this season will finally be different.

You can be sure the one season we do not engage with the club and commit to the season ticket or membership will be the season we pull off the miracle and achieve promotion.

But eventually, the numbers and the facts become impossible to ignore. Over the past 10 seasons in the Championship, Bristol City have become the definition of football mediocrity, in fact it is felt like purgatory at times.

As an example, look at the averages of our goal difference, league position, average points across the time we have spent in the Championship. What jumps out isn't a disaster. It's repetition of mediocrity.

In the time we have been back in the Championship there's been one genuine play-off push (2025), and that ended in the largest aggregate loss of any club in recent play-off history.

Since we have been back in the Championship there have been a couple of flirtations with relegation, but to be honest, apart from the Lee Johnson run in the League Cup, it all sits somewhere between forgettable and harmless.

I mentioned our averages over the time we've been in the Championship, well they go something like this: about 60 points a season, around a -3 goal difference, and we tend to finish 12th.

It just does not feel like progression does it?

I think it is what they call a holding pattern. But the most symbolic figure, in 2025-26 our goal difference was zero. We were not shocking, we just existed, we were there.

If you were going to go into your local DIY store, and select a colour based on Bristol City's performance. It's going to be beige - it is inoffensive, it just sits there , does not cause any bother, it exists.

Last season was the season we really should not have bothered.

At the start, Struberball got us so excited, but then it all changed. There was no genuine promotion push, there was not really any jeopardy, but we ended up with a feeling within the fanbase that the club had not moved forwards. Apathy has struck.

We now find ourselves waiting for the additional layer of hierarchy to be filled which we are told will help remove the blandness you associate with Bristol City.

The appointment of a sporting director who will then choose a head coach to lead and develop the team and lead us all into the land of riches and dreams called the Premier League.

You can hear more from Richard Angell on the Forever Bristol City podcast., external

Roy Hodgson has "thoroughly enjoyed" his second stint in charge of Bristol City as Saturday's 2-0 win over Stoke City was his last in the Ashton Gate dugout.

Delano Burgzorg pounced on Viktor Johansson's miskick in the opening minute, with Sam Bell tapping in the hosts' second goal in the 88th minute.

Former England head coach Hodgson - who briefly served as the Robins' boss in 1982 - replaced Gerhard Struber in late March and led City to three wins, two draws and two losses in the final seven games of the season.

"I've seen us play better, funnily enough, in these games, but I haven't seen us show any more fight and determination and spirit than we showed today," said Hodgson to BBC Radio Bristol.

"That's also a very, very important quality, especially knowing that we also have more chances going forward to show our quality on the ball.

"I've thoroughly enjoyed it," he added. "It's been a great time. These players have been such a pleasure to work with.

"I shall miss them, of course, as we go into the summer break, but I shall certainly be following them and wishing them all the very best for the future.

"Yeah, I need it [a break] too. It's been an intensive five weeks for me and more intense than I've been used to over the last two years.

"I'll need to get my mind back now to a calmer and more tranquil way of life."