The Exiled Robin

This morning's London-based Hammersmith Gazette newspaper has reported the following story: QPR MOVE FOR COTTERILL TO BOUNCE STRAIGHT BACK "Queens Park Rangers are ready to hand Steve Cotterill, the current Bristol City manager, a £10m incentive to leave the Westcountry and return to Loftus Road, IF current caretaker boss Chris Ramsey fails to keep the R's in the Premier League. A club insider has told us that owner Tony Fernandes was impressed with Cotterill when he had an eleven-month spell as a coach under then boss Harry Redknapp, and the Cheltenham-born manager's stock has risen ever since with a hugely successful spell at Ashton Gate. Cotterill came in with the Robins bottom of League One in December 2013, but led them to safety comfortably, and has followed that up in spectacular style this season. Cotterill's side, who won the Johnstone's Paint Trophy in front of over 72,000 fans at Wembley last month, are currently ten points clear at the top...

Amidst an ever-foreboding aura of gloom and despair surrounding Ashton Gate, Thursday evening’s creaking shut of the loan transfer window proved considerably more exciting from a Bristol City point of view than the permanent equivalent in January.   True, we didn’t have our top scorer and main headline-grabber leaving us for a couple of million quid, but that was all a bit of an anti-climax anyway for us in the West Country. This time, taking prominence instead of Maynard’s departure was the arrival of three players in a move that looks certain to be boss Derek McInnes’ final gamble.   With an incessant series of injuries and suspensions in defence – which will be exacerbated again following the credible point at Middlesbrough being earned despite McGivern’s sending off – contributing to a run of form as bad as many can remember, this could be seen as the tough Paisley-man’s equivalent of putting the house on black (or red, for City of course). A more in-depth analysis ...