The Exiled Robin

“Roses are red, Violets are blue, We are going up*, And might just win at Wembley too!” * - hopefully! Three months to go. Three months in which to seal the glory the first six months of the season would deserve. Of course, it won’t be that easy, but at the moment City are winning games comfortably despite not being at their absolute best, and are in one of those lovely grooves that come along all too rarely when you go to matches not just hoping, but actively expecting to win. Of course, usually with City it’s when you get this comfortable that things start going wrong, and if it’s going to, slap bang in the middle of a six week run of Tuesday – Saturday fixtures is both the possible time, and the worst possible time for it to happen. The squad will be put through a truly tough test, and whilst there are already signs of some rotation – Tavernier/Little now seem interchangeable whilst Greg Cunningham has given Joe Bryan occasional breaks – I was a touch surprise...

Welcome back to a new season's set of 'The Inside Line', a (usually) weekly view of the opposition. We may mix up the format a little more this week but if last season is anything to go by then there will be plenty of interest for you to keep coming back and checking it out each week. Stu Radnedge has also returned to The Exiled Robin to take you through this opening fixture. There could be no doubt, from anyone, that Saturday’s opening fixture between Bristol City and Sheffield United should be a classic encounter.  Both teams have been widely tipped by pundits, supporters, bookies and punte rs alike to be in the promotion race after all 46 league games have been played.  Both teams were around the bottom four at the festive period last time around but, obviously, beat the drop when they found their form – albeit United achieving this sooner than City. But the summer has been kind to us. City have cleared the books, letting many of the big earners go, and have m...

Those of you who have followed my blog for some time, or perhaps once-upon-a-time may have perused my ramblings in the City programme, may recall this week’s guest as I featured his Blades blog in this piece  a couple of years ago. Ian Rands, host of ‘A United View’  has had a highly successful couple of years, with a series of interviews with ex-Blades  and one particularly thoughtful post about his son’s exposure to the dark side of football  helping him to be shortlisted for the 2012 Football Supporters’ Federation Football Blogger of the Year award and going one better to take The Two Unfortunates award of the same distinction. Thus I’ve been looking forward to welcoming Ian to this feature since the fixtures were announced as I knew I’d get an insightful, balanced, thoughtful and detailed view of life at Bramall Lane – and he’s delivered just that. Sheffield United have suffered an even worse start to the season than City and new boss David Weir pai...

My latest article from Bristol City's matchday programme, Red Alert : Birmingham, Oct 23rd With more and more people using Twitter, reading blogs and viewing a tranche of news websites, finding what you want to online can be an arduous, confusing and time-consuming process.   To help you out if you’re just stepping into this labyrinth, or just want to explore further afield, I have identified some of my favourite destinations and will run through these today, and in some future editions.   BLOGS Part 1: As you can imagine there are a copious number of blogs and no-one could read them all.   I’ve excluded any Premier League specific blogs for the simple reason I don’t really read them.   There’s more than enough space dedicated to the behemoth of English football as it is, so instead I’ll focus on four of the most interesting, varied and well written sites that concentrate on the Football League and its members: The Two Unfortunates ( thetwounfortuna...