Ross McCrorie hopes his 'miracle' season for Bristol City can end with something even sweeter

Hyperbole is rife in football discourse but when Ross McCrorie brands this season a “miracle” for him, it’s kind of warranted. The Scot has made 21 appearances since his debut on January 13 - a first appearance for the club that was delayed due to a bacterial infection in his pelvis that nearly cost him his career.

As he lay in constant pain inside a hotel room on the harbourside, several hundred miles from home and on his own, the thought of completing around a third of a Championship season was a distant dream. If anything, it was probably the last thing on his mind.

But through his own determination, the wonders of medical science, help from within the club - and he is constantly complimentary about everyone, from the medical team to training staff to the Lansdowns, for all they’ve done - he can look back on the season with pride.

Beyond just being a professional footballer again, there has been another bright light on the horizon that is glowing ever stronger as the season draws to a close: Scotland’s participation in the European Championships.

During the endless days in the gym, he and Tommy Conway would push each other to get fit by constantly talking about the prospect of lining up in Germany.

Twelve months ago, McCrorie was in talks with City and on the verge of the national team squad before making the breakthrough in June not long after his Robins deal was signed off. However, such have been his physical struggles since, the only other opportunity he’s had to make Steve Clarke’s selection was in the March international break.

His omission left him disappointed but with around three weeks to go until the group is named for the summer, and with squad sizes for the tournament growing from 23 to 26, he hopes he’s put himself back in contention.

“Absolutely,” McCrorie says, with strong emphasis on each syllable, when asked about Scotland being on his mind. “I was disappointed not to get in the March squad but I had to be realistic with myself, I had only come back a month prior. But Scotland is a major motivation to get to the Euros.

“Tommy had that injury period and we were always banging on each other to get back fit and get back in the shape of our lives because there is that motivation to get in that Euros squad. It’s never guaranteed if Scotland will get into a finals again, hopefully there’s many more to come but you want to try and grab an opportunity if it arises and hopefully I can keep putting in the performances and you never know, anything can happen.

“I’ve been playing plenty of minutes and, honestly, when I had that injury I did not expect to get back in January. I thought it would be at the back-end of March or something, so, for me, to play 20-odd games, considering where I was with that injury, is a miracle and I just want to keep building on it for next season.”

Whenever asked about recruitment and what drives his idea of squad building, Liam Manning often references the concept of variety in possessing different types of players to match up against the variety of opponents you encounter in the Championship.

In McCrorie and George Tanner, while Mark Sykes has also been used as a right wing-back, the City head coach has two increasingly reliable but very contrasting right-sided defenders to deploy.

Tanner has been a model of consistency and efficiency at the defensive end, his work 1vs1 exemplary, but the frustration has often been his lack of attacking penetration.

McCrorie brings that in abundance, with his first touch nearly always forward and with a desire to get the team high up the pitch plus he adds considerable pace and power, in the air and on the ground.

He still, at times, goes on meandering runs infield with mixed results but he creates that necessary chaos and uncertainty that helps break rigid teams down. And while his defensive smarts aren’t perhaps quite at the level of Tanner’s yet, both bring plenty to the side, particularly when starting together in Manning’s seemingly favoured 3-4-2-1.

McCrorie can now safely say he feels fully fit but after sampling the Championship over 18 matches, is hungry for more next season where he believes he will step up another level.

“I’d watch a lot of Championship games and I think it really suits me with my physical capabilities,” McCrorie said. “It’s quick, physical, rough and tumble at times - especially teams like Rotherham - but I like that battle, I like that war.

“It’s been an eye-opener with my injury but just a relief to get back on the pitch. I feel as if I’ve played a good accumulation of minutes considering where I was and I’m just really looking forward to next season to get a pre-season under my belt. When you come back from injury, you still feel as if you’re playing catch-up, but I’ve been happy with the majority of my performances and I feel as if there’s still more to come but that will come once I get that pre-season under my belt and I can hit the heights that I know I can.

“Right now I feel as fit as I can be, but when I came in I had only had about a month of training and I was straight into the thick of it. For myself, I felt as if I was deconditioned for six months, so I was needing a good couple of months to get bang at it again. But now I feel really good, I feel fit, I feel strong and I feel as if my body is coping really well with it.”

As mentioned, whenever he’s spoken to media, McCrorie’s peppers the conversation with constant praise about the club, the people that work there and how fortunate he is to have been able to settle in the area so seamlessly, despite all his challenges.

His family were in Bristol last month for a guided tour, having spent so much time away from Scotland, and that helped bring a slice of home to the West Country but he very much feels part of the city.

“I’ve settled in really well. It’s helped with the whole club, the staff, the boys in the changing room,” McCrorie said. “For a group of lads it’s been one of the easiest teams to come in and settle really quickly. It’s a really nice city, I’ve got to know a lot of friends down here already and I couldn’t say a bad word about any of the staff, they’ve been top with me.

"Especially that first six month period where it was extremely difficult and, to be honest, I couldn’t have got through it if it wasn’t for them, so I’m grateful to every single one of them. Also to the owner for getting things in place really quickly to get the specialists in and get it sorted.”

Bonds have been formed, naturally with the Scottish contingent of Kal Naismith, Scott Murray and Tommy Conway but McCrorie has also grown close to loanee Scott Twine, despite a relatively short amount of time spent together.

Understandably he’s hoping this Saturday won’t be the last time they take to the field together in a City shirt, with the club keen to secure a permanent arrangement with Burnley but with considerable complication and uncertainty around such a deal.

“He’s one of my boys. Me and Twiney, we get on really well; great lad, great player as well and I like how he comes into the little pockets and you can find him and he’s always on that half-turn, he’s always looking to go forward,” McCrorie said.

“I could not say a bad word about Twiney, me and him have got a great relationship and hopefully he’s here next season but you never know, that’s something for upstairs to decide.

“When you come back from injury, you don’t click straight away, it takes a good couple of months to get up to speed and you see Twiney against Rotherham, the quality he brings and, not just that, the character of him - you need good characters in the dressing room. You need a good bunch of boys and he’s a top lad.”

Twine’s return to the side has been a factor behind City’s late-season surge as they’ve gone seven matches unbeaten and can finish inside the top 10 this weekend, for the first time since 2019.

Like his head coach, McCrorie believes that while this run may be externally written off as too little, too late in the context of trying to secure promotion, it’s importance won’t be fully revealed until next season, given the foundations being laid and the habits, standards and mentality being created within the dressing room, which should carry over into 2024/25.

“It’s a mentality thing," McCrorie said. "Every game we want to win and we need to have that mentality. We wanted to finish on a high and keep this run going because we want to have the momentum going into next season and that’s what we’ve been banging into each other all week - three points, keep the standards high and make sure we don’t drop them.

“These last seven games we’ve had the standards extremely high. We want to win every game. For us, if we want to be where we want to be - pushing up for promotion - you’ve got to have that consistency. The gaffer has come in and brought his own ideas, he’s had time to implement it and we’re starting to see the fruits of it.

“It’s been a bedding-in period; new ideas, different style of play, different tactics and things aren’t going to click straight away. It’s a whole new team for the gaffer and he’s getting to know the boys and you can now see things clicking and getting into place and I’m really excited to see what happens next season.

"We don’t want to be sat in the Championship, we want to be playing in the Premier League. For every player here, we want to be playing at the highest level possible so that is obviously the aim for next season.”

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