LEE Johnson didn’t just outfox Jose Mourinho during Wednesday night’s stunning Carabao Cup quarter final victory at Ashton Gate against Manchester United. He might even have out-celebrated him.

Not only did the 36-year-old sprint down the touchline with the kind of abandon redolent of Mourinho back in his days as a young Portuguese firebrand after Korey Smith’s spectacular injury-time winner, he then clutched the nearest human who he could find, who just happened to be a young ball boy called Jaden Neale from Bedminster, birling him around through at least 720 degrees in a manner not seen since the Strictly Come Dancing final.

By contrast, Johnson and his remarkable Bristol team are still only through to the semi-finals of this competition, and a forbidding last four showdown against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, but Johnson was fully entitled to drink in the moment with a drop of the £450 bottle of wine which he splashed out on for that post-match chin wag with Mourinho.

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While not everything has been plain sailing in Johnson’s career – Bristol City only saved their Championship skins on the final day of last season, while Johnson also has stints at Oldham Athletic and Barnsley on his resume – it was worth pointing out that masterminding epic upsets in the League Cup aren’t entirely alien to him.

Who could forget the 2012 Scottish League Cup final against Celtic, when the Kilmarnock left back made a similar venture up the touchline to fire over the pinpoint cross which was met by Dieter van Tornhout with just six minutes left to play? The eventual win will live long in the memory of every follower of the Ayrshire side, even if the moment of triumph was punctuated by the tragic loss of Jack Kelly, the father of Killie midfielder Liam.

Kenny Shiels, the man who masterminded that victory, sensed all along that Johnson had the traits for management which served his father Gary well in spells at clubs like Bristol City, Yeovil Town and even the Latvian international side, and has already proved he has what it takes to manage at a very high level. The only problem is that all the top jobs in British football are sewn up by big name foreign managers to the extent that even someone like Brendan Rodgers is on the outside looking in.

“Lee is very single minded, a very go-ahead type of lad,” Shiels, now manager of Derry City, told Herald Sport yesterday. “It is great to see him doing so well because he is great company and a very good lad. You could always see that he had it in him to go and manage people, because he has very good people skills. He is a bubbly lad, he has a way about him which is very appealing to players and he has good aspirations and ambitions to do well. That rubs off on his players, you can see that.

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“He is a big character but it wasn’t just Mourinho he was playing, it was Manchester United,” added the Northern Irishman. “So it was a fantastic achievement to beat them, really fantastic, especially with a predominantly British team, that is significant too. I texted him last week and he got back in touch with me but then I always try to keep in touch with my former players, trying to see how they are getting on.

“Lee has done really, really well,” said Shiels. “He went through a sticky spell this time last year but he weathered the storm and you learn things about yourself at times like that. The chairman was good to him and Lee appreciated that.”

“You are asking a lot for them to win it now, but one thing that works in his favour is that the big fish have been using it to give game time to fringe players,” said Shiels. “But they are three of the biggest clubs in Europe now and he is going there with a team which showed tremendous togetherness last night and that comes from the manager. You don’t build that dynamic if people don’t like the manager - look at Celtic, and the job Brendan Rodgers has done – he has made teams get better, James Forrest has got better, Leigh Griffiths has got better, Stuart Armstrong has got better. But if you ever wanted to pick a game out about togetherness that was the one to show. The way the Bristol City players played together and the bond they had with the supporters - it was all there last night.

“It is a bumpy ride for a young British manager these days, so I don’t think it is fair just for me to say that Lee will manage in the Barclays Premier League one day. Obviously he has got excellent credentials to be a very good manager but you have to be very lucky, have a lot of things go for you, if you are to get a job ahead of foreign coaches in the Barclays Premier League. Right now, it seems to be that English managers can be in at clubs battling in the lower echelons of the league, then when you get to the top eight it is all foreign. I don’t know why it should just be a British one when they are looking for a manager to battle for them. But you can see the correlation there.”