It's funny how football works out sometimes. During their first meeting with Liam Manning, in discussing thoughts around recruitment, Brian Tinnion and Jon Lansdown were afforded a wry smile at the player who stood at the top of his loan list for the January transfer window with Oxford United.

A proven League One performer who's been on the periphery for much of the season in the Championship, a temporary stay back in the third tier under an attack-minded head coach could bring the best out of him, while also significantly boosting their own fortunes.

As fate would have it, Manning gets to work with Anis Mehmeti two months ahead of when he was hoping to sign him, with the 22-year-old probably the one member of this Bristol City squad who you'd consider could make a notable jump in performance with a new man at the helm.

Mehmeti's City career had begun to feel like it was drifting. Having been signed in January for PS1million, a transfer that was rightfully viewed as a coup and offered considerable compensation for Robins fans who had witnessed Antoine Semenyo being sold to Bournemouth just four days previously.

Here was one of the brightest offensive talents who theoretically could slide into that left-sided attacking role vacated by the Ghanaian and while a different player, with a skillset all of his own, he could provide the x-factor that disappeared with Semenyo's departure to Dorset.

There were glimpses towards the back-end of last season, and signs of what he could do, but Mehmeti's progress has largely stalled in BS3, to the extent where after losing his place to Sam Bell, he's barely featured even as a substitute. Hence the growing interest from elsewhere in the pyramid over his potential availability in January.

The Albanian international has made eight appearances in the Championship, with an average of 26 minutes on each occasion. He ranks 18th in the City squad for league minutes, with Ephraim Yeboah, Haydon Roberts, Joseph James and Jamie Knight-Lebel below him. The 29 minutes he enjoyed on the field against Sheffield Wednesday last Saturday were his most in a single league game since August 19, at home to Birmingham City.

Pearson often spoke of Mehmeti successfully "simplifying" his game over the summer and while it's, of itself, maybe simplifying the debate a little, he's a player that surely thrives on being complicated.

Liam Manning during training at the High Performance Centre (Photo by Rogan/Bristol City) His willingness to go at defenders, try something different and make things happen has to occur, to a certain extent, on the cuff and at speed, without time for serious thought or premeditation. The longer he spends on the ball, thinking about what could happen, the less unpredictable what he's going to do next becomes.

It's again, simplistic to suggest that it's a product of Pearson's management, because ultimately the player is responsible for not adhering to what the manager wants - and his performance against Norwich City in the Carabao Cup particularly irked the 60-year-old. But the fact he played for an extended period against the Owls - although he did enjoy a surprising 23 minutes at Leeds United before the last international break - immediately after his dismissal was of potential significance.

He showed elements of what he could do in that game, with one dart down the inside left channel and to the byline, precisely why he was brought to the club 10 months ago, and with Manning approaching the Robins squad with a fresh pair of eyes, his chances of winning a regular place in the starting XI have been dramatically boosted.

In the footage that has been released by the club this week from the HPC, there is one standout highlight as Tommy Conway perfectly bends a powerful strike around Stefan Bajic and into the bottom corner, but the opportunity is created by Mehmeti's first-time volleyed pass, cushioned into the striker's path.

"Anis was brought in as a potential investment for the football club. Now Anis hasn't progressed as much as we want or as much as Nige wanted - because he wanted to see him succeed - but it sometimes happens, and it's nobody's fault," technical director Brian Tinnion tells Bristol Live.

"In our conversations with Liam, on the top of his list to get to Oxford on loan was Anis Mehmeti. He really likes him, thinks he's a fantastic player, thinks he's exciting and there's loads more to come. It's a chance for him to show what he can do.

"Anis Mehmeti has got a really great chance now of getting back in the team."

The key for Mehmeti could well be not so much what he does on the ball - as important and integral to his game as it is - but how he operated out of possession as the devil to Manning's approach looks to be in the detail around each phase of play.

Anis Mehmeti in action against Norwich at Ashton Gate (Photo by Rogan/Bristol City) The new head coach regularly speaks of dividing the pitch up and while it's fundamentally 11vs11, a match can also be analysed via a series of smaller games in certain channels - the need to win duels, create rotations and force overloads. The flipside to that, of course, is to stop such things happening when you don't have the ball.

Such were the resources Pearson was working with, Mehmeti and Roberts are perhaps the only individuals you can identify as being under-used; both victims of Cam Pring and Bell's strong seasons but also perhaps certain perceptions from the manager.

Beyond that duo, though, there are others in the U21 set-up who have gradually drifted from first-team contention who could also come into the selection picture over time, providing they impress; forward Sam Pearson and midfielders Omar Taylor-Clarke and Dylan Kadji have had varying degrees of senior experience but appeared to be drifting towards an inevitable exit further down the line. Suddenly there is a route back for them.

"Every single person in that team will have a role, in and out of possession. There'll be a real expectation. So, in possession, they'll know what to do; out of possession, they'll know their roles," Tinnion added.

"People are about, 'oh, picking teams and that'. Liam Manning will pick the players, the team, of course he will. It's never changed. I've been doing this job for 10-12 months and that's the process. We don't get involved in that.

"Once he's on the grass, I'll be thinking about January and the summer's recruitment. Constantly talking to him about that - 'what do you want? What do you think?' because he's going to judge the players. Some will be, 'wow, they're better than I thought'. Some will not be as good as he thought. That's totally over to him.

"The lads who have maybe dropped down the pecking order a bit, they'll get an opportunity because when he wants 11vs11 in training, those lads will be getting a chance to play so he can see them. It's a clean slate for everyone."