Bristol City backed to re-sign Adam Webster - 'I'd be very happy' | OneFootball

The Brighton star shone for Bristol City in 2018-19, and FLW's City correspondent feels taking him back could be an excellent addition at Ashton Gate.

Former Bristol City centre-back Adam Webster is out of contract with Brighton & Hove Albion this summer, and his former club could benefit from making a move to take him back to Ashton Gate.

This is going to be a summer of change for Bristol City.

The decision to sack head coach Gerhard Struber in March and bring in Roy Hodgson until the end of the season means that the club are looking for a new manager for next season, and the changes will also extend to the playing staff, as well.

City finished the season in 12th place in the table, and eleven points short of a play-off place. But with a lot of players coming and going from Ashton Gate over the summer, the potential availability of one particular former City player could cause interest at the club.

Adam Webster only spent one season at Ashton Gate, but he left a mark on the club before a big money transfer to Brighton. But now 31 years of age, the centre-back's contract at The Amex expires in the summer and he's set to leave the club by mutual consent, raising the question of whether his former club may look to make a move to reunite with their former player.

"I'd be very happy" - Bristol City told to take action over potential Adam Webster return this summer

Football League World have spoken to our resident Bristol City fan pundit Tom Sandy about the possibility of Webster returning to his club this summer, and Tom is eager for his club to explore this possibility: "Obviously he's set to leave Brighton this summer. His contract is running out. There were rumours within the fanbase, more so than anything concrete, I believe, that we would like Webster back. Obviously this is not the same Adam Webster as a few years ago. He was our player of the season in 2018-19. He's had a lot of injuries at Brighton, a few issues, especially over recent years."

While Tom is aware of the issues with injury that Webster has had in recent years, he feels that the player was such a hit at Ashton Gate during his last spell with the club that this would be a move worth making: "However, this bloke was a generational signing, especially in the Championship. He was unbelievable for Bristol City. He's probably one of the best centre-backs I've ever seen play in a Bristol City shirt. The way he played with Tomas Kalas was brilliant. He's very versatile. We would play a back five sometimes and he'd just drop in at DM if we needed him to. That's how brilliant he was. Ball-playing, pace, skill, a fantastic player."

While Bristol City are reasonably well-stocked for centre-backs, Tom feels that Webster's return would give his club more options for the new season: "Obviously he's lost some pace now. I'm not sure how he's done this season at Brighton, but we realistically need one more option at centre-back. We've got Noah Eile, Atkinson, Dickie, Luke McNally to come back and Jamie Knight-Lebel to come back on loan from Swindon, where he was one of their best players. He could potentially slot in if he doesn't go on another loan in League One to continue his development."

Ironically, given how much time Webster has been absent with injury himself, Tom feels that the injury status of some of their other defenders supports the case for bringing him back: "So we're looking pretty good in that department, but we do tend to play five at the back and we do have a lot of injuries at centre-back. Rob Atkinson is quite susceptible to injury, Rob Dickie has been injured, and Luke McNally was out for the whole of last season."

But despite potential question marks over his fitness, our fan pundit feels that this is a move that his club should be looking at: "If he has injury problems, he'd be less good as an option. However, having a bit of versatility in depth, if he would take a big wage cut to come, it would definitely be welcome because he was a brilliant player at Bristol City, he had a brilliant time at Ashton Gate earlier in his career, and if that's a move he wanted to make, I'd be very happy."

Adam Webster is highly accomplished defender, but his injury record is an obvious concern

Adam Webster's previous spell at Ashton Gate was certainly a success. He joined the club from Ipswich Town for a fee of £3.5 million in the summer of 2018, but such were the quality of his performances that it wasn't long before he started to attract the interest of Premier League clubs and, having won the award for being their Player of the Season for 2018-19, he moved on to Brighton the following summer.

Webster was enough of a hit at Brighton to be offered a five-year contract with the club in 2021, but with that contract now set to expire it seems that he is set to leave the club. Injuries have been an increasing problem for him in recent years. He missed four months of the 2024-25 injury with hamstring and thigh problems, and an ACL injury picked up in last summer's pre-season kept him out of the Brighton team for the whole of the 2025-26 season.

With the player estimated by Capology to be on nearly £70,000-a-week at Brighton including bonuses, he would certainly have to take a big pay cut to fit into the wage structure at Ashton Gate. His current wage is almost three and half times that of the highest-paid Bristol City player for the 2025-26 season.

But Bristol City did very well out of the sale of Adam Webster seven years ago, with the suggestion that Brighton paid £20 million for his services, and if they could persuade the player that a move back to Bristol would be beneficial to him, the new Bristol City head coach, whoever that turns out to be, would have an extremely accomplished player waiting for him, if a wage can be agreed and his injury problems are likely to be firmly in the rear-view mirror.