By: david micria
Submitted: 2008-12-14 13:29:30 | Word Count: 456
Instead Bristol stand on the verge of promotion to the Premiership having disposed of Crystal Palace. Palace had been on an outstanding run of form to get themselves into the playoff positions, and many thought that their late form would see them climb their way out of the division.
City, however, had other ideas. Having been in the automatic promotion spots for so much of the season - despite having a goal difference that hovered around the zero mark for almost the entire campaign - they slipped down into the playoff zone with only a few matches left. Johnson's team, however, don't seem to have lost heart and have come strong again.
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Palace showed quality over the two legs, and probably deserved to claim it. If it had not been for an unfortunate penalty miss with twenty minutes remaining of the second leg they may indeed have turned around the deficit from the first leg.
This season Bristol City have had something that every successful team needs, a fair amount of luck. Against Norwich, in what at the time was thought to be a match that might secure them promotion, they scored a last minute winner from a long ball. Now that they've found their way into the playoffs, the four goals that they scored against Palace were all absolutely superb, no doubt some of this is down to practice and hard work on the training field, but for all the hard work in the world you need some luck for the ball to rocket into the net from 25 yards out.
City, as they have been all season, find themselves as outsiders for promotion (though by a smaller margin this time). For those interested in sports betting, and football betting in particular Blue Square have City at evens to go up, with Hull at 5/6 and Watford an unlikely 14/1. This is probably a fair reflection of the teams left involved, failing a spectacular performance by Watford, Hull will go to Wembley to face City, and in terms of quality they probably shade it between the two teams.
If City do go up, though, they will be relying on the one thing that Johnson picked as the outstanding attribute his team possesses - heart. It's a horrible cliché, but sometimes your name is just on the trophy, and if you put enough effort into it then you'll get there. Johnson will be hoping for one last big effort from a team who has given it everything throughout the season.
Of course, as soon as City - or Hull for that matter - go up they will be labelled the most likely for relegation. Be that as it may, getting to the Premiership is a fine enough achievement in itself.
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