The players and coaching staff have had more a week to work on what went wrong at QPR last time out and to establish how we’re going to flip this run of form on its head.

“It was good to have time to work as a near-complete group on everything we have to improve, specifically defensively,”Pauno commented. “It was very beneficial to have a lot of sessions together with the individuals we want to play at Bristol City. Cohesion is very important for us.

“Regardless of who we are playing right now, looking at our team and what we do as a team is the priority.

“What we can improve, but also what we have to eliminate to not put ourselves in difficulties – giving the ball away too easily and having to work harder to get possession back, conceding crosses and corners too easily.

“The urgency in training has been there, the quality has been much better and we have worked a lot defensively…we have had important meetings to address our vulnerabilities in that phase of the game.

“We’re going to play against a lot of teams in ‘our current league’ in the coming weeks. And that fight is something I want to see rise up in our players.

“There fitness is getting there now, there is potential in this group and there is certainly talent. Talent is the reason you, as a player, have been selected at some point and it has carried you and supported you to get to the level you are now. But it takes much more than talent.

“It takes fitness, it takes belief, it takes cohesion, it takes social skills, it takes a strong mentality to deal with adversity, it takes tolerance of the repetitive effort you have to put into training every day…all these boxes have to be ticked to start to achieve success. And we have been trying to tick those boxes in training.”

“Talent is not enough. This is going to take character. And that is down to us!”