Next Bristol City Manager Odds: After Liam Manning

Any long-suffering Championship club on the lookout for a new manager is likely to be tempted to bat an eyelid John Mousinho's direction. The 39-year-old has done a fantastic job in charge of Portsmouth.

Having taken charge of the club back in January 2023, he led them to League One promotion and has since guided them to a 16th place finish in their first campaign back in the second tier; that's happened whilst being celebrated for a good style of play too. 

With Pompey his first steps into management, Mousinho's 44% win ratio from 124 games is seriously impressive, and the general view is that he is a young manager with a high ceiling.

Considering the setup behind the scenes at Ashton Gate, the club is positioned to align with Mousinho's growth ambitions, whilst he would be someone who could look to evolve Bristol City without completely ripping up the work Liam Manning has done.

The timing of how decisions unfold could be vitally important in any potential move for Michael Carrick.

As we write, he's employed by Middlesbrough but with a couple of failed attempts at guiding the Riverside club to the playoffs, albeit they've not been too far away, have started rumours that he could lose his job. If and when that happens will determine how likely a move to Bristol City could be. 

From a managerial perspective alone, though, you can make an enormous case for why Carrick could be tempted by Bristol City and vice-versa.

The Robins have big ambitions to go up and become an established Premier League club, whilst Carrick brings significant pedigree in the footballing world, a clear philosophy of play, which is in keeping with City traditions and is a measured voice both internally and externally.

Whether the fans would be won over by such an appointment, given he's come up short with Boro, remains to be seen. 

It would probably be a tad on the harsh side to describe any move for Miron Muslic as a punt, but his body of work in England is very limited having only managed 23 games.

Despite that, it's already clear he has something about him both as a leader and as a tactician at Championship level. 

Muslic, whose biggest experience comes from a 26 month spell at Cercle Brugge, took over at Plymouth, replacing Wayne Rooney.

The Pilgrims were averaging 0.78 points per game under the Man United legend. That improved dramatically to 1.24 under Muslic; extrapolating that to a whole season would be around 57 points and good for midtable.

That would have been a phenomenal performance for a team and squad like Plymouth, and, as such, you do wonder what he could get out of a better-equipped side. 

Any appointment of Andy King at Ashton Gate would be an eyebrow-raising one, and certainly left field. It would, however, be one that the fans would get behind.

King, who supported Bristol City growing up, finished his playing career with the Robins after first signing as a player and then transitioning into a player-coach role.

During that period, King was widely praised by supporters and the club hierarchy, but ultimately, he called time on his Bristol City chapter when retiring from the playing side of the game. 

Question marks were raised over that decision at the time, and fan frustration was brought back to the fore in February this year when King was made assistant manager at his former club, Leicester.

The Foxes have their own managerial challenges with Ruud Van Nistelrooy tipped for the chop this summer. That rejig could feasibly put King out of work and available for another role. In a world where Liam Manning isn't the manager, could that be back at Bristol City?