Bristol City manager Lee Johnson has responded to what he felt was an unfair criticism of the club's summer spending, reports the Bristol Post.

Ahead of the clash between Preston North End and Bristol City at Deepdale on Tuesday night, Preston manager Simon Grayson criticised Bristol City for performing below par considering the money they spent in the summer.

Johnson hit back, however, noting that they had lost three key players in Jonathan Kodjia, Luke Freeman and Luke Ayling since the end of last season.

The Bristol City boss continued by pointing out that most of the summer business was done with the future in mind: Josh Brownhill, Callum O'Dowda, Jamie Paterson and Gustav Engvall are all under the age of 24.

Johnson said that Grayson's comments about Bristol City's summer spending could be true depending on how you look at it.

The under fire Bristol City manager said:

"Well I think it's a fair comment as far as we feel like we should have more points on the board.

"I think [on] our money spent, well it depends how you look at that.

"By selling Jonathan Kodija, Luke Ayling and Luke Freeman for vast sums of money and then to build for the future.

"A lot of the money we've spent this year was for young players, under 22s actually, Callum O'Dowda, Gustav Engvall, Josh Brownhill, Jamie Paterson who is under 24, a lot of players in that future band and bracket and particularly with our U23s as well we've made some good future-type signings that are only going to improve us as we go forward."

Bristol City fans - what do you make of this? Are you expecting future success? Do you agree with Johnson or Grayson? Let us know in the comments below...