Nigel Pearson admits Bristol City ‘made too many poor errors’ against Luton

Posted Thursday, March 16, 2023 by PA

Bristol City boss Nigel Pearson admitted it was a tough night for his side as too many of his players were below-par as they fell to a 1-0 defeat at promotion-chasing Luton.

Carlton Morris’ 16th goal of the season after just five minutes was enough for the Hatters to make it three straight wins, moving them a point behind third-placed Middlesbrough in the Championship.

Pearson said: “We gave ourselves too many problems from the start.

“We didn’t start well, too many players out of sorts, made too many poor errors, and against a side like that who put you under pressure, to concede so early on, it looked like it could have been a bit of a tough night.

“We managed to get to half-time intact and second half we were better.

“Max (O’Leary) made three really good saves to keep us in the game, we’ve had our chances, but it was a tough night for us as we had too many players out of sorts.

“Second half we were much, much better, we had to change our shape to try and impact on the game that worked pretty well to a large extent, but you can’t give your opponents the impetus to go and drive forward right from the outset.”

Morris opened the scoring early on with a terrific header from Cody Drameh’s cross.

Luton should have had a second, but Elijah Adebayo was denied by O’Leary, who also repelled Luke Berry’s low effort, as Marvelous Nakamba fired wide too.

After the break, City improved and Alex Scott and Harry Cornick put shots straight at Town keeper Ethan Horvath.

Morris almost made it 2-0, O’Leary pulling off a fantastic stop, and Hatters boss Rob Edwards said: “I thought the performance in the first half was excellent.

“We were on the front foot, we were a real threat, created big chances, and everything that we want to be, we were.

“They remained a threat on the counter-attack and we had to manage that but I thought the first half was pretty much one-way traffic.

“As we all know, two halves of football are never exactly the same and then when we didn’t get that second goal, they can gain a little bit of confidence and belief from that, and then we all know we’ve got to make sure that we see the game out.

“We still had a couple of big chances in the second half, great save from Carlton’s header and we got into some good areas, but as a team we defend really, really well, and we had to show that at the end of the game.”