'We know we can do it' - Max Bird on Bristol City culture, 'freakish' injury and Robins' target

Max Bird is yet to start a Championship game for Bristol City under Gerhard Struber after recovering from an injuryMax Bird missed the start of Bristol City’s season through injury(Image: EFL)

With four league games played and the first month of the new season in the rearview mirror, the majority of Gerhard Struber’s Bristol City squad will likely now be at least starting to get back up to speed with the chaos and demands of Championship football.

The likes of Jason Knight, Zak Vyner, Adam Randell, Scott Twine, and Anis Mehmeti have already got hundreds of competitive minutes under their belt, having been regular fixtures of the Reds’ starting line-up under Struber. For Max Bird, on the other hand, things have been a little bit different.

After returning to the High Performance Centre for pre-season testing in July, the 24-year-old midfielder sustained a calf injury ahead of the Robins’ warm-weather training camp in Portugal. While Bird travelled with the rest of his teammates to the Algarve, he was forced to follow an individual programme in a bid to build up his fitness ahead of the new campaign.

Following an impressive first season in red and white, the setback was obviously a source of frustration for the former Derby County man, and that feeling was only exacerbated by the fact that Bird had a new coaching staff to impress.

“It’s been difficult,” the midfielder explained in a pre-match press conference at the High Performance Centre. “I did a lot of work over the summer and then had a bit of a freakish injury. Similar to what I had before, but how it happened and how it occurred was a bit strange.

“But I’m feeling good. I had to be patient and take my time to get back up to speed, get that sharpness back in my legs, fitness, and whatnot. I missed pretty much the whole of pre-season, but I think there was a session just before the Hull game where it clicked, and I thought, ‘I feel good now, I’m back in a really good position.’

“I did some work over the summer and felt in a really good place,” Bird continued to Bristol Live. “To then come back, have it all taken away, and then have to rebuild, you’re not with the lads in pre-season training, you’re in the gym on your own and with physios, it is tough.

“Obviously, with a new style and new coaching staff coming in, you just want to impress from the start, so it was tough. It took me a couple of weeks to get back up to speed as well, which, I’m mature enough now to know that I wasn’t going to jump straight back in and be quality again; I’d have to build my fitness and sharpness up.

Max Bird started Bristol City’s defeat to Fulham(Image: EFL)

“The timing wasn’t great, but what are you going to do?” he added. “Just sit, slouch around, and sulk about it? What good’s that going to do? I remained in a positive mindset and locked into what I needed to do.”

Ultimately, Bird missed City’s season-opening win against Sheffield United but managed to return from the bench against MK Dons just a matter of days later. Having built up his minutes over the course of cameo appearances against Charlton Athletic and Derby County, he was handed his first start of the term against Fulham in the Carabao Cup.

On top of that, a goal from the bench in the Robins’ win over Hull City last time out served as an indication that the 24-year-old is starting to get back to his best after his spell on the sidelines. However, his route back into the starting line-up has been made slightly more challenging by the impressive form of summer addition Randell.

When asked about the competition for places, Bird simply smiled, “It’s football, isn’t it? That’s what happens. Rands has come in and done very well; I can’t make any excuses about that.

“It’s me against me every day, so I have to be better than I was yesterday, and if I can do that, I’ve played the game long enough to know what will happen after that. I feel good, I feel as though my sharpness is coming back, and to be fair, having been out for so long, just being back on the pitch and with the lads, playing football again in front of fans is quality.

“That’s all that’s been in my head. I’ve not really overthought it or thought, ‘I’m not in the starting line-up’ or stuff like that. I’m just happy to be back out there and enjoying playing football again.”

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Randell was the first of five additions made to Struber’s ranks this summer. Shortly after the midfielder’s move was announced, the Robins confirmed the signings of both Joe Lumley and Emil Riis, before Radek Vitek made the temporary switch to Ashton Gate from Manchester United in late July.

With less than 24 hours remaining of the window, City made their fifth and final signing of the summer as Neto Borges checked into BS3 on loan from Middlesbrough. The Brazilian has had the best part of two weeks to get to know his new teammates over the course of the international break and will be hoping to make his debut against Sheffield Wednesday this weekend.

A large part of the Reds’ success last term was credited to the bond formed between the players over the course of the campaign. Despite the handful of alterations to the playing squad and a change in the dugout, Bird is adamant that brotherhood is as present now as ever before.

On the addition of Borges, the midfielder said. “He’s good, he’s a cool guy. He’s done well, he’s settled in, a confident lad, loud, talks a lot on the pitch and off the pitch.

“He’s settled in with the group really well, and we have a big culture here, and the manager has come in and picked up on that – how close we are as a group. It’s not fake, it’s real, the tightness of the group, so he’ll fit right in.

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“Over the international break, the lads have been away, and we’re still a really close group,” he continued when asked about the relationships within the camp. “We come back and we have chats and things like that. The manager and Bernd are really big on us doing stuff together outside of the club as well because they can see the tightness that we’ve got.

“It’s important that we keep that. It’s easy to say now when we’re playing well, we’re winning games and scoring lots of goals, but it’s not always going to be champagne and roses. We know that, and everyone who has been involved in football knows that. It’s when we start coming on that downward spiral, it’s how we stay together then, pick ourselves up so that we don’t end up in a rut and it’s more of a blip.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

So far, City’s start to the campaign has been as close to “champagne and roses” as you tend to get in England’s second tier. Ahead of their trip to Hillsborough, Struber’s side sit sixth in the Championship, are one of four teams unbeaten in the league, and have scored more goals than any other side in the division – other than Coventry City.

Of course, with 42 games still to be played between now and May, nothing is even close to being won at this stage. Anyone with any prior experience of the Championship will know that there are still plenty of twists and turns to come before the Reds face Stoke City at Ashton Gate on the final day of the season.

But having had a taste of the play-offs last time out, Bird and his teammates have a hunger to go a step further this time around, so much so that they haven’t even needed to discuss their aims for the campaign as a collective.

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“We’ve started really well,” the 24-year-old reflected. “We had a little review today over the stats and where we are. Obviously, it’s a different style of play, and we’re still getting used to elements, and there are still elements of the philosophy and the identity that we need to work on, but it’s been exciting, really exciting.

“We had a sniff of it last season of where we want to get to and how good this team is. Obviously, we’ve added very well in terms of signings, so it’s exciting and it’s going to be a great season, I think.

“You guys don’t need to ask what the target is,” Bird continued. “Everyone knows what the target is around Bristol City football club. We’re aiming towards that, and we’ll keep our foot on the gas.

“We don’t speak about it. We just sort of come in, train hard, have a laugh after training, and go home.

On the belief within the group, the midfielder added, “We know we can do it, so we know that we beat teams in the top half of the table, we know we beat Sunderland, who went up, and things like that. We know we’re a good enough team to do it, so now the belief is strong, of course, and we have to keep it like that and not let that get away from us.

“Like I said, the target is the target, and we take each day as it comes. We don’t look too far ahead, and we don’t dwell too much on the past. We just come in, train hard, and do the basics really well to try and get one per cent better everyday. That will head us in the right direction.”

‘We know we can do it’ – Max Bird on Bristol City culture, ‘freakish’ injury and Robins’ target

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