Nigel Pearson explains the aspect of Bristol City’s game that pleased him most in Blackburn Rovers win

Bristol City won a first away game since October when Andi Weimann hit an injury-time winner at Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.

Even without the services of the injured Tomas Kalas, the Robins put on a stout defensive display to earn a first clean sheet since hosting Derby County at the beginning of December.

And that defiance at the back paved the way to three points (the first in the league on the club’s travels since at Peterborough, before the clocks had even moved backwards for daylight saving across the winter), as Dan Bentley saved Bradley Dack’s penalty on 83 minutes.

Midfielder Reda Khadra also hit the crossbar as the hosts pressed for a victory in the second half at Ewood Park, but the West Country side held on.

Weimann grabbed his 17^th goal of the season in the second minute of injury time to secure a win that likely seals City’s stay in the Championship at the very least this season.

Manager Nigel Pearson reflected on a defensive job well done, with plenty of positives as Robbie Cundy made a fine first league start for the South West club, with Timm Klose and Rob Atkinson both putting in good displays up in Lancashire.

“Unfortunately the main talking point will be the officials for lots of reasons,” said Pearson on the club channels following the game.

“But as far as I’m concerned, even if we’d lost the game today, what we had today was an application that was more in keeping with what we need to be.

“We weren’t the dominant team today in terms of possession I wouldn’t think, and we had to do the ugly side of the game efficiently and we did that,” he said.

Bristol City move on to face Barnsley on Tuesday evening in a second consecutive away game.

And another gritty display would be well appreciated by the travelling fans who had to wait 12 games for another joyous trip supporting their team.

“They’ve been a part of a very good team effort,” said Pearson of Cundy and Atkinson’s performances afterwards.

“Throughout the team... I thought Chris Martin was brilliant today. Antoine is always going to be a threat because of his attributes, Nahki when he went on worked exceptionally hard so people played their part.

“In the first half we looked very, very solid. Andi did a very good job for us in an unaccustomed position and Jay was very good too.

“It was a day in which we needed to show the qualities to get over the line in a game where your opponents are really asking a lot of questions of you,” said Pearson, who paid tribute to a “stubborn” performance from his side.