![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1748207656_105_0_Liam-Manning.jpg\")
Liam Manning guided Bristol City to a sixth-place finish this term(Image: EFL)<\/p>\nLiam Manning guided Bristol City to the Championship play-offs for the first time in 17 years last season<\/p>\n
21:04, 25 May 2025Updated 21:18, 25 May 2025<\/p>\n
Liam Manning guided Bristol City to a sixth-place finish this term(Image: EFL)<\/p>\n
Bristol City are braced for an approach from Championship rivals Norwich City for head coach Liam Manning, Bristol Live<\/a> understands, amid reports the Canaries are close to appointing the Robins’ boss.<\/p>\n Reports emerged on Sunday evening that Manning, who guided the Reds to a first play-off finish in 17 years this season, is close to being named as Johannes Hoff Thorup’s successor at Carrow Road, having been linked with the vacancy at the Norfolk club in recent weeks.<\/p>\n Former Robins midfielder Gary O’Neil had also reportedly been on Norwich’s shortlist, as had Jurgen Klopp’s former Liverpool assistant Pep Ljinders, who has been without a club since leaving Red Bull Salzburg last year. However, City boss Manning is understood to be the Canaries’ number one target.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Bristol City take first steps towards achieving summer priority with double contract decision<\/a>READ MORE: Ex-Bristol City favourite to join League One club upon expiry of contract with Championship side<\/a><\/p>\n Manning took over from Nigel Pearson<\/a> at Ashton Gate in November 2023, guiding the Reds to an 11th-place finish in his first campaign in the West Country. After a mixed start to the 2024\/25 season, an impressive run of form, particularly in BS3, in the second half of the term helped propel City into the top six of the Championship.<\/p>\n The Robins’ season ended on a disappointing note as Chris Wilder’s Blades beat the Reds 6-0 on aggregate<\/a> in the semi-final, a record defeat in the competition, to end Manning and the Robins’ hopes of winning promotion to the Premier League.<\/p>\n Join Bristol City Live’s Whatsapp community for all the biggest Bristol City stories sent straight to your phone<\/strong><\/p>\n Bristol City Live<\/a> is now on WhatsApp and we want you to join our community.<\/p>\n Through the app, we\u2019ll send the Bristol City news, live match coverage, team news, transfers, fixtures, analysis and more straight to your phone.<\/p>\n To join our community you need to already have WhatsApp. All you need to do is click this link and select \u2018Join Community\u2019.<\/a><\/p>\n No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Bristol Live<\/a> team.<\/p>\n We also treat community members to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. If you don\u2019t like our community, you can check out at any time you like.<\/p>\n To leave our community, click on the name at the top of your screen and choose \u2018Exit group\u2019.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.<\/a><\/p>\n Click here to join our WhatsApp community.<\/a><\/p>\n At the time of writing, Bristol Live understands City are still yet to receive an official approach from Norwich for the 39-year-old’s services and while the Robins have been keen to keep Manning at Ashton Gate, they are expecting to be contacted by their Championship rivals within the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n When he arrived in the West Country from Oxford United, Manning put pen to paper on a three-and-a-half-year deal with City, which still has two years left to run.<\/p>\n Bristol Live understands that the deal does contain a release clause, with The Telegraph<\/a> reporting Norwich would have to pay the Robins compensation in the region of \u00a3800,000.<\/p>\n READ MORE: ‘It’s my home’ – Cam Pring’s first words after Bristol City make new contract announcement<\/a>READ MORE: ‘Feels like my home’ – George Tanner’s first words as Bristol City make contract announcement<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Manning guided Bristol City to the Championship play-offs for the first time in 17 years last season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,2686,748,393,4884,10583,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-131607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-city-fc","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-liam-manning","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114570544052842926","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_WhatsApp-Phone.jpg\")
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