Football League World
·12 November 2024
Football League World
·12 November 2024
The striker has made a good start to the season for the Robins
Bristol City continued their impressive recent run in eye-catching style on Saturday afternoon, with a 2-0 victory over Norwich City at Carrow Road.
In doing so, Liam Manning's side provided the perfect response to their late 2-1 defeat to Sheffield United in midweek, which had ended their eight-game unbeaten run.
Beyond that, the victory over Johannes Hoff Thorup's side also saw the Robins become the first team to beat their opponents at home in over 12 months.
One player who certainly had a considerable part to play for Bristol City in that victory in East Anglia over the weekend was Nahki Wells.
Manning's side had taken a 1-0 lead into the dressing room at half-time courtesy of Anis Mehmeti's 16th-minute strike into the bottom corner.
They then doubled their lead just after the hour-mark, when Wells blasted past George Long from just inside the area.
In the end, those two goals would be enough to secure the win for Bristol City, moving them up to tenth in the current Championship standings.
Indeed, Manning's side are now just three points adrift of the play-off places, going into the November international break.
Meanwhile, that latest contribution from Wells, will arguably only make things even more interesting for the Robins, when it comes to one decision they must make in the next few months.
With his goal against Norwich on Saturday afternoon, the Bermudan international continued what has been a fine season so far from an individual perspective.
It is now five goals in 12 Championship appearances for Manning's side since the start of the campaign for Wells, meaning he is the club's current top scorer.
Bristol City in the current campaign.
However, the striker is set to be out of contract at Ashton Gate, at the end of this season, meaning the club will soon have to make a decision about his future beyond the summer.
Wells is now 34 years old and will turn 35 shortly before the start of the 2025/26 campaign, which may raise questions about how much longer he can compete at this level for.
Indeed, Bristol City also signed other, younger centre-forward options in the summer transfer window, in the form of Sinclair Armstrong and Fally Mayulu.
There may, therefore, be a temptation to look to those two as the primary source of goals for the Robins at Ashton Gate, given their longer-term prospects, and the investment made in them.
Right now though, it is Wells more than anyone else, who is making the required impact in front of goal for Manning's side.
If he continues in that form, that will surely be hard to ignore for the decision-makers, when it comes to a call over whether or not to offer the 34-year-old a deal by the end of next season.
Should Wells remain their top scorer between now and then, it would likely be seen as a risk to let him go, particularly if others do not start to fire.
Indeed, Mayulu and Armstrong have scored just four Championship goals between them so far this season, one fewer than the Bermudan has scored by himself.
Speaking ahead of the start of this season, Wells expressed a desire to secure an extended contract at Ashton Gate.
Right now, it does seem as though he is making a strong case to earn that new deal from Bristol City, provided he goes on in the way he has started.