With Oldham flying surprisingly high in League One during the 2014/15 season, a lot of talk emerged about their young manager Lee Johnson. 

In February of the same season, he was head-hunted by fellow League One side and recent Championship relegation victims Barnsley with the Tykes struggling in the third tier.

Johnson led them to an underwhelming 11th place finish but was achieving steady progress with the Yorkshire side during the 2015/16 campaign.

But when Bristol City sacked their League One title-winning manager, Steve Cotterill, Johnson was high on the Robins' list as a replacement.

And on February 6 2016, they got their man.

This is FLW Rewind, where we take a look back at a big decision made by a club in their recent history, analyse the initial response and look at what happened.

In 2018, Johnson is revered as one of English football's most promising and exciting managers, but that was not the reputation he always had.

On his arrival at Ashton Gate many Bristol City fans saw his record and were extremely underwhelmed, with some bordering on livid. Here was somebody who could barely cut it in League One being tasked with helping their team survive and thrive in a higher division.

In his first season, Johnson impressively steered the club comfortably clear of relegation, finishing 12 points clear of the drop and winning a few more fans in the process.

But the following campaign was a much bigger struggle for the Robins.

Despite bringing in Tammy Abraham during the summer, Bristol City found themselves in a relegation battle throughout the 2016/17 campaign.

The Chelsea loanee scored 26 goals but the Robins only secured survival on the second last day of the season and finished just three points above the bottom three.

Despite some loud calls from the fans for him to be sacked, the City board stuck by him ahead of the 2017/18 campaign and this was when he began to prove all the doubters wrong.

The Robins got off to a flying start with Johnson himself being named Championship Manager of the Month for September as the club knocked on the door of the automatic promotion places.

Unfortunately, the momentum could not be maintained and they eventually fell out of the promotion picture entirely.

But after beating the Manchester United in the League Cup and pushing Manchester City all the way over two legs in the semi-final, Johnson showed just what he is capable of achieving with the club.

This campaign has started in a similar vein to the last with Bristol City once again flying high in the table and currently sit third in the table.

With Andreas Weimann the league's second top scorer Johnson continues to show he has a keen eye for recruitment.

It is safe to say that the Ashton Gate faithful may well have been a bit quick to judge the manager who is currently leading the most exciting time in the club's recent history.