From Nigeria to managing 'Mohamed Salah' – the ex-Bristol City boss whose career has taken an intriguing turn

Former Bristol City manager Lee Johnson’s path through his coaching career has taken quite a few unexpected turns since he left the Robins back in 2020 – and now, after spending time in Denmark and Nigeria, he’s back in management with little-known Belgian outfit Lommel SK.

Once the youngest manager in the EFL, Johnson now takes over a team battling to stave off relegation from the Belgian second tier until the end of the season – but how did he get there, and what challenges lie ahead?

Lee Johnson follows in his father’s footsteps with overseas appointment

You’d get a pretty broad range of responses were you to ask about Lee Johnson in around Ashton Gate. As a player, between 2006 and 2011, he was seen variously as either a rock-solid pro in midfield or as a product of nepotism, depending on how any given fan felt about his being signed to play by his own father, Gary – and as Bristol City’s manager for a little over three seasons, he had plenty of ups and downs.

Since leaving the Robins for the final time in July 2020, Johnson’s career has largely consisted of downs interspersed with flashes of the promise he showed as an inexperienced coach in Bristol.

He was fired as Sunderland coach with the club third in the League One table and qualified for Europe with Hibernian, but never achieved consistent results or performances, while a brief stint at Fleetwood Town in 2023 proved to be disastrous – Johnson was sacked after just 22 matches, of which he won only six.

After a decade in management, Johnson’s career seemed to have stalled out, which EFL clubs apparently unconvinced by a manager with a relatively lengthy CV that had plenty of points of interest but few clear-cut successes. Many coaches would probably have given up. Johnson, however, decided to be a little more productive with his time.

An interview with Sky Sports in January revealed that Johnson had kept himself busy during his year out of management. Coaching work with Danish club FC Copenhagen was followed by a spell of scouting and coaching in Nigeria, not a post many English coaches would have looked for – but it was a short-term spell with Manchester City’s developmental squads that gave him the launch pad to get back into management.

Lommel SK, Johnson’s new charges, have been 99% owned by the City Group multi-club ownership group since 2020 and having impressed with his work with the biggest team in the stable, they decided to give him one more chance in management.

Johnson’s willingness to head overseas and find ways to extend his career which existed a little way off the beaten path is reminiscent of his father’s own path through management. After a less than promising start with Kettering Town and Cambridge United, the elder Johnson took a chance on the Latvian national side – and that proved to be a stepping stone towards a long and steady career in the EFL which included nearly five years with Bristol City.

Johnson junior is, of course, still very young by managerial standards. He may have been in the game for over 10 years but he was given his first posting by Oldham Athletic at the tender age of just 31 and, now 43 years old, he is still younger than the significant majority of head coaches in the game. Johnson’s Belgian adventure may yet prove to be a launching pad for further success rather than a trip to the last chance saloon – not that he won’t face some challenges while he’s out there.

Why Manchester City’s money won’t make Lommel an easy job

Lommel may be a part of the City Group, which includes 13 clubs worldwide, but the Emirati money behind the club hasn’t yet bought lasting success.

The club spent an estimated £7m on transfer this season – far more than any other club in the Challenger Pro League – but have won just five of their 22 league games and are only six points above the relegation zone. When Johnson takes charge for the first time against league leaders Zulte Waregem on Saturday, he will be hoping to earn Lommel their first win in 13 games.

Those poor results cost former head coach and one-time Arsenal star Steve Bould his job, with another ex-Arsenal player, Ryan Garry, taking temporary charge until Johnson was appointed until the end of the season. Relegation remains relatively unlikely, especially given that one of the league’s 16 teams, Deinze, went out of business in December and had all of their results annulled, but that the club are even in the conversation represents a significant failure.

If Johnson can turn things around with Lommel – who have never played in the Belgian top division but finished fourth in the second tier last season – it could reignite interest in his forward-thinking approach to coaching. Johnson was among the first coaches in Britain to use drones to record his team’s training sessions from above and even helped former Bristol City Lloyd Kelly to prepare for his senior debut by using a VR headset. He is nothing if not an innovator.

But what he needs most of all is results, and he does at least have an expensively-assembled squad (by the mean standards of the Belgian second division) with which to string some together – a squad which includes a familiar name in the shape of Mo Salah.

Not that Salah, of course, but a 20-year-old Belgian forward whose name will either be a source of tremendous amusement or a gigantic albatross around his neck as his career progresses – not that it’s stopped him from scoring four goals so far this season. Manchester City academy graduates Yeboah Amankwah and Kluiverth Aguilar are among Salah’s team-mates in a multinational and multicultural squad.

Gelling that squad together to become equal to the sum of its parts is Johnson’s short-term challenge, but his success or failure might not determine just the immediate future of Lommel, but Johnson’s own career in management. Get it right, and it might just give him the chance to put all those forward-thinking ideas into practice in the EFL once again.