'A decent start but tougher tests to come'

A 3-1 victory at Deepdale on Tuesday evening made it two wins in a row for Bristol City after they had beaten Portsmouth by a narrower margin of 2-1 at Ashton Gate on Saturday.

Seven points from the opening four games is a decent start for the Robins and in this back to school week, I would give it a mark of B+.

Both wins have been achieved without the team playing particularly well for long periods, like they most certainly did at Birmingham in their opening away fixture where they could have felt hard done by coming away with just a 2-2 draw.

Two well-taken goals against Pompey detract from the fact the south-coast side kept City penned in their own half for most of the second period.

At Preston, City had the boost of an early lead through Scott Twine, but it was the build-up to that goal involving Lisav Eissat, Lorent Tolaj and Rio Cardines which was particularly easy on the eye.

After taking that early lead, City seemed to involuntarily shrink to a level of performance that a better side than Preston would surely have punished, with the home side missing a host of presentable chances in the first half.

There was no respite for City after the restart and it was the least Preston deserved when they drew level.

City needed to change their approach and boss Michael Skubala did just that with a triple substitution on the hour.

Cameron Pring, Gibson Yah and Jed Wallace came on and immediately City began to wrestle away the initiative from Preston before the points were made safe in the space of seven minutes by Eissat and Dom Ballard.

With the transfer window closing, City will be heartened by the fact they have, for now, retained the services of both Twine and Jason Knight who were subject of much transfer speculation.

It is reflective of a better approach to communicating with the fans since the arrival of sporting director James Ellis that the club released a joint statement with Knight confirming that while no contract extension has been agreed, he will retain the captaincy.

And for the Republic of Ireland international's part, he offered hope he may stay beyond next summer with these words: "What's happening at the club is really exciting and the changes being made are taking us in the right direction.

"We have built a new squad and I'm enjoying being part of that process."

City's new look squad will be tested to the maximum in the next 10 days though, with away fixtures to come at Burnley and Southampton.