Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Luca Williams-Barnett did not need any: 9.01, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
He is 20, he is averaging 7.66, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
2‑3 to Birmingham, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
Luke McNally was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.38. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Adam Randell signs something — a contract at Bristol City or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Max Bird provided it, and the 8.65 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Max Bird was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
6 goals in one match, Max Bird on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Bristol City and Charlton Athletic.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Dani Carvajal falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
8.81. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Bristol City, and it is not being withdrawn.
25 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Baye Coulibaly is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Max Bird was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 10.00, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Dani Carvajal falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Baye Coulibaly is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Max Bird was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Rudy Kohon is living that version at Bristol City, and it tends to show in the first month.
He is 20, he is averaging 6.58, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bristol City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Wolverhampton have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Luke Skinner. The answer from Bristol City has not changed — yet.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Bristol City, another week without a signature from Luca Russo.