Bristol City will be desperate to emulate £45m transfer masterclass | OneFootball

Bristol City have been a very good selling club down the years and go it spot on with these two

It's been a case of close but no cigar for Bristol City down the years as far as reaching the Premier League has gone, with the Robins earning a reputation alongside other clubs as 'nearly men'.

The Lee Johnson days saw them come close to breaking into the top six but they always tended to fade away at the business end of the season and that certainly led to off-field repurcussions as it made it incredibly difficult to keep hold of players.

Bristol City have a reputation as a selling club, and while that can often be good in terms of attracting players as they know they won't be blocked from moving on in the future, it becomes frustrating for fans to see players come and go so often.

Unfortunately for the Robins though, that's the harsh reality of what it's like for a club who haven't been in the Premier League, as they lack the financial power to compete with sides who have parachute payments.

Bristol City have performed admirably in the market though, being able to see numerous players for healthy profits to try and bridge that gap, and two of the most high-profile ones earned them a huge chunk of money.

Alex Scott and Adam Webster earned Bristol City £45m

For owner Steve Lansdown, that kind of money was simply too good to turn down, with Bournemouth paying a reported £25m for Alex Scott in August 2023, while Brighton stumped up £20m to take Adam Webster in August 2019.

Those two players comfortably fetched the biggest transfer fees in the club's history and it allows them to keep the club running for years to come.

As alluded to earlier, it's difficult for Championship clubs who don't have parachute payments to compete with those who do, so for Bristol City, bridging that financial gap by developing players to then subseqeuntly improve the squad is of the utmost importance.

Naturally, losing two players of that calibre weakened the Robins substantially, but in both windows, they were able to reinvest the money into the squad, particularly the one where they sold Webster, in which they spent circa £20m.

The problem with that window was that they spent most of that on players who they were never able to sell on for a vast profit, which probably explains their more cautious approach when selling Scott last summer.

Bristol City has been a hot-bed for emerging Championship talent

Aside from the financial benefit of selling those players, deals like Scott and Webster have a knock-on effect because other players see their deveolpment and want a piece of the action.

Scott, Webster, Antoine Semenyo, Josh Brownhill, Sammie Szmodics, Lloyd Kelly, Bobby De Cordova-Reid and Joe Bryan to name but a few have all left Bristol City in the last decade and gone on to play in the Premier League.

The Robins have a track record for producing proven players for the top-flight, and within the current crop, it certainly can't be ruled out that there is another emerging gem within there.

It's a model that has worked wonders for Bristol City down the years, and although they haven't been able to get quite enough of those quality players together to get out of the league, their model has at least made running the club sustainable.