Bristol City player rolled ankle on 'dangerous' QPR pitch, says Liam Manning (2025)

Max O'Leary has been an ever-present in the Bristol City starting line-up in the Championship this season

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Liam Manning confirmed Max O'Leary had "rolled his ankle" in the warm-up of Bristol City's draw with QPR, with the Robins head coach labelling the border of the Loftus Road pitch "really dangerous" following the full-time whistle.

City kept their place in the Championship play-off places with a 1-1 draw in West London on Saturday afternoon as George Earthy's third goal of the season cancelled out Karamoko Dembele's opener.

The Hoops winger broke the deadlock after 21 minutes when he found room at the back post to head home Nicolas Madsen's cross from the right wing.

While the Reds had started slowly, Dembele's opener seemed to spark them into life with Earthy's leveller coming just nine minutes later. The West Ham United loanee interchanged brilliantly with Max Bird before rolling a smart first-time finish past Paul Nardi and into the bottom corner with the outside of his right boot to ensure the points would be shared.

O'Leary managed to play the full 90 minutes against Marti Cifuentes' side in the end but the academy graduate did look in some discomfort at times having received lengthy treatment during the warm-up. Although Manning didn't go into detail about the goalkeeper's condition, he was quick to criticise the "dip" around the edge of the Loftus Road playing surface.

"He rolled his ankle," the head coach told Bristol Live when asked about the goalkeeper's condition. "The borders of the pitch are really dangerous, the linesman did it at the end to be fair.

"There's a section where there is grass and astro and there's a really big dip in it, which is why the linesman did his ankle at the end. It's something they need to look at because it's really dangerous."

O'Leary has started all of City's 42 Championship matches this season and featured between the posts during the Robins' FA Cup clash with Wolves at Ashton Gate earlier this season. The Ireland international is undoubtedly the Reds' number one at this stage with Stefan Bajic yet to make a league appearance since arriving in BS3 in the summer of 2022.

In his almost three years in the West Country, the 23-year-old has played just two competitive matches. The first came in a Carabao Cup defeat at the hands of Lincoln City in November of 2022 and the second came at the start of this season when Manning took the chance to rest O'Leary for City's League Cup defeat against Coventry City at Ashton Gate.

Bajic started for the Robins' Under-21s in their 4-2 win over Wigan Athletic at Ashton Gate on Monday afternoon, something both he and third-choice goalkeeper Lewis Thomas have done over the course of the campaign so far.

With just four matches of the regular Championship season still to play, it is currently unclear just how O'Leary's rolled ankle will impact the Reds in the final weeks of the season. Manning's side currently sit fifth in the table, four points clear of seventh-placed West Brom with important games against Sunderland, Luton Town, Leeds United and Preston North End to come.