Nigel Pearson reveals half-time message as he praises ‘commendable’ Bristol City

Nigel Pearson has described his Bristol City players as ‘commendable’ after they came from behind to defeat Stoke City 2-1 on Good Friday at the bet365 Stadium.

The Robins won for the first time on the road since February 4, and claimed a fifth straight victory at the home of the Potters. Nick Powell opened the scoring for the hosts but Zak Vyner got City back on level terms and then Anis Mehmeti opened his account for the club after entering the action from the bench.

Before Powell’s goal, they had chances to break the deadlock but Nahki Wells spurned a good opportunity and then Andi Weimann had a header saved by Max O’Leary. Tyrese Campbell nearly doubled Stoke’s lead before half-time but Max O’Leary made a brilliant reactive save which allowed for City to come back in the second-half.

“We were pretty awful in the first ten to 15 minutes,” said Pearson in his assessment to BBC Radio Bristol in his post-match interview. We just couldn’t settle in the game.

“The choice of passing out of the back was really poor. You can’t play well every time you go out there and we stuck at it. Even in the first half where we were not great for the whole of the first half we still had the two best chances. I thought Sam Bell was excellent, particularly in the first half.

“The pitch suited our strengths in terms of having pace and as the game developed we just looked more likely to score again just because of the types of players we’ve got. All the substitutes that went on had a positive impact on the game too. It’s a good result for us, we go above them and we go over the 50 points mark.

“We’ve found scoring goals difficult of late from open play and it’s nice to come back in a game although they dominated possession in the first half they didn’t really open us up too many times.”

As a result of their win, City go above Stoke in the table and are currently 13th in the Championship, and end their losing run of three matches. They are now 11 points above the drop zone and 10 points off of the play-offs.

It was the first time in the league this season that City had come from a losing position and won a match. Alex Neil had only lost one of the 11 matches against City, but his side had to accept defeat following a strong display from the men from the West Country in the last 20 minutes.

At half-time, Pearson gave an encouraging speech to his players, who have battled through adversity this season. Omar Taylor-Clarke’s premature departure meant City’s injury list grew but Andy King slotted in well and the substitutes made a positive impact.

He said: “We had a bit of a difficult time in the back end of the first-half but to be fair to them I said at half-time. They’ve been really good for us this season and in times where we’ve been low on numbers,  these lads have stuck at it and played themselves back in to a game and it’s very commendable.”