Nigel Pearson reveals the big reason behind Bristol City’s recent resurgence

The Robins made it two wins on the bounce on Saturday with a hard-fought 2-1 victory at Preston North End, thanks to goals from Mark Sykes and Sam Bell and while Ched Evans pulled one back for the home side around the hour mark, City dug in to pik up another three points.

Nigel Pearson’s side remain in 17th place in the Championship despite the good run, such is the congestion in that area of the table, but they are nine points clear of the relegation places.

It appears as though a corner has been turned since the start of this year and Pearson says no magic wand has been waved and that it’s all down to collective grafting.

“The foundation is hard work and togetherness because when you get criticism, it’s never easy to take but it’s always easier to bear when you share it,” Pearson said following the win at Preston. “We can work together to turn it around and that will never change.

“Everybody comes under pressure at some point but I think what the players have shown is a belief in each other to just keep performing. For the time being, things are going well but we’ve got difficult games coming up now so the challenge is to just keep that going.”

The City boss was also happy to see celebrations for the victory shared between players and supporters and it does appear that there’s a buzz around the place again.

“I’m just delighted for the players, it was good to see them celebrating with the fans because there’s a real connection there. It’s important our fans have a team they want to go and see,” he added.

“[Preston’s] quality from set-plays is excellent and I thought we – to a man – stood up and made it really difficult for them. It was a tough game. We had to be up for the battle – and we were. They put us under a lot of pressure in the second half, but we showed some really quality in a tough, physical game.

“I was really pleased with the collective effort and our desire to win. It was a bit tetchy at times, but it doesn’t matter because it will go down as an away win. We would like to play with a bit more style, but we couldn’t today because the game didn’t allow us to do that.

“It was a tough, physical game, but we showed some real quality as well. That [result] was a great example of what we’re about. The game looked as if it was fizzling out in the first half, but a decisive counter-attack from us and we’re 2-0 up at half-time. It was a very important win for us.”