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Bristol City boss Gerhard Struber has had a positive start at Ashton Gate(Image: EFL)<\/p>\nGerhard Struber has used 19 different Bristol City players in his first five Championship matches as the Robins head coachBristol City boss Gerhard Struber has had a positive start at Ashton Gate(Image: EFL)<\/p>\n
Gerhard Struber has shed light on the \u201chonest conversations\u201d he’s held with the members of his Bristol City<\/a> squad whose game time has been limited this term, with competition at Ashton Gate ensuring it isn’t easy for the Reds boss to name a starting line-up.<\/p>\n The Robins have made an impressive start to life under the Austrian, winning three and drawing two of their opening five Championship matches ahead of Sunday’s clash with Oxford United in BS3.<\/p>\n Over the course of those first league games, Struber has made limited changes to his squad between matches. The only major alteration has seen Rob Dickie replace George Tanner<\/a> in the back three after serving his suspension against Sheffield United on the opening day of the campaign, whilst Yu Hirakawa and Mark Sykes have split the load at wing-back.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Rob Dickie update as Gerhard Struber shares Bristol City injury latest ahead of Oxford visit<\/a>READ MORE: Bristol City Women announce multi-club ownership group Mercury13 acquires majority stake<\/a><\/p>\n In the majority of areas, however, the City boss appears to have settled on a regular side, so much so that a player of Max Bird’s quality<\/a> has struggled to force his way into the starting fold consistently, having returned from a calf injury in August.<\/p>\n While the standard of players waiting in the wings gives Struber a bit of a selection headache, he has aimed to be open with his squad so that they know where they stand with so much of the season still to be played.<\/p>\n \u201cI think in every football team, you need in the end a big roster,” the head coach explained in his pre-match press conference. “You need players that are also ready from the bench.<\/p>\n “I know this; I was also a professional football player and it\u2019s not a lovely situation when you’re on the bench but I think right now, we have players that are ready from the bench, they left everything on the field and their attitude in the training week is also on a really good level.<\/p>\n “Then, of course, it\u2019s not always easy for me to realise the first starting 11, but the season is so long and we need every single player, and I would say everyone would deserve, at the moment, game time from the starting position but the reason is we can only let players on the field like the other ones and this is 11.<\/p>\n Bristol City looking to build on last season’s play-off finish under Gerhard Struber and you won’t miss a beat with our free newsletter.<\/p>\n All the latest news, views, interviews, gossip and analysis concerning the Robins, delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n It’s completely free and you can sign up HERE<\/a><\/p>\n “That\u2019s the reason why we have sometimes a little bit of disappointment, but I think the boys still do very well in this direction at the moment and see the long season for our chest.<\/p>\n \u201cI think, of course, it\u2019s not always easy with players to speak that have, at the moment, not so much game time,” Struber added to Bristol Live<\/a>. “But I prefer always an open conversation with these players, and I have with my whole team, and especially with my players that are not so much involved in game time, a good exchange and really honest conversations.<\/p>\n “I think this is also what they expect from me, especially when someone trains so hard and invests so much, like my whole group, that they want to know why they don\u2019t play or why they don\u2019t play so much.<\/p>\n “In this direction, we have, I would say, right now a really good exchange.”<\/p>\n So far this term, the Robins’ schedule has been fairly straightforward. Since they exited the Carabao Cup at the hands of Fulham<\/a> late in August, Struber’s side have had to navigate one game a week, with the only mid-week match to come between now and the October international break seeing Ipswich Town travel to BS3 on September 30.<\/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 On the other side of that break, however, things step up a gear with six games to be played in the three weeks before November’s international fixtures and then a run of seven matches in the lead-up to the congested Christmas period.<\/p>\n With an awful lot of football to come between now and the new year, Struber is under no illusion of the important role those currently on the periphery of his squad will have to play over the coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n “These are the moments where we have to rotate and these are the moments where we have to use our roster,” said the City boss. “I think in this way, I am open for that.<\/p>\n “Right now, we have not so much stress with games, but the time will come, especially when we look on the schedule for November and December – it’s crazy – and then of course, it’s much more important that we have much more players available.”<\/p>\n READ MORE: Former Bristol City manager resigns from role as Director of Football at League Two club<\/a>READ MORE: Gerhard Struber shares Luke McNally update as defender left out of Bristol City’s EFL squad list<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gerhard Struber has used 19 different Bristol City players in his first five Championship matches as the Robins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,2686,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-435106","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-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115228796176000400","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435106","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=435106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758015353_222_0_GettyImages-2232406771.jpg\")
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