City need to show character and step up - Mehmeti
Mehmeti: "We need to show fight"
- Published
Bristol City need to show their character and have been "nowhere near good enough" after back-to-back losses in the league says forward Anis Mehmeti.
The Robins were thrashed 5-1 by Stoke on Saturday before falling to a 1-0 defeat by Blackburn at home on Tuesday where they failed to register a shot on target.
The losses have seen them drop from fourth to seventh in the table and they travel to Watford on Friday for their third match in six days before a two-week international break.
"They've scored again a goal that we conceded on Saturday [at Stoke], a ball across the box - it's too easy to get beat down the line and then the ball gets flashed across and we're 1-0 down from a game that's so poor from both teams, not any real quality so that's really frustrating for us," Mehmeti told BBC Radio Bristol.
"We need to show character now because that's back-to-back losses, we started the season so well, we need character now, we need players to step up, whether that's defenders, midfielders, attackers to go and produce.
"I'd say our energy has been flat, in all aspects, our pressing, our counter-pressing, our ball moments, our final-third entry play again today, zero shots on target.
"It's nowhere near good enough for a team like us, we've got real quality but we need players to step up, it's all good saying it in the changing room but we've got the responsibility to put it right on Friday."
Mehmeti is Bristol City's top scorer with five goals in 14 Championship matches, although he has only scored once - against Southampton - in the past eight games.
Only four Robins players - Mehmeti, Scott Twine, Emil Riis and Mark Sykes - have scored more than two goals this season.
"Even against Birmingham we win but for us attackers we haven't really created enough chances and we haven't been converting," Mehmeti said.
"It's three games now with no real high quality moments - we need to find ways of being clean on the ball in build-up and at the end of it executing it."
Bristol City have been hit by a number of injuries and have been without first-choice midfielders captain Jason Knight, Joe Williams and Max Bird for a number of weeks.
Luke McNally and Cameron Pring remain missing with long-term injuries, while centre-back Rob Atkinson has now also suffered a hamstring injury to add to their defensive woes. Against Blackburn Neto Borges and Mark Sykes also both went off injured.
Yet Mehmeti said the number of absent players cannot be an excuse for their performances.
"Every other team has got injuries, that's the Championship. We know it's 46 games, we know we're going to pick up injuries on the way so we have to adapt to these conditions and we need to show fight," he added.
