Nigel Pearson admits silence is golden after Bristol City’s come-from-behind win
Posted Saturday, September 02, 2023 by PA
Nigel Pearson felt biting his lip was the key to Bristol City’s comeback win at Swansea in the Sky Bet Championship.
The visitors claimed a 2-1 victory after falling behind to Liam Cullen’s 10th-minute opener, Mark Sykes and Sam Bell rewarding their control with second-half strikes.
The turnaround came after Bristol City felt several decisions went against them in a first half that saw them have three goals disallowed.
Pearson said: “What we talked about (at half-time) is, if we could keep our composure, we knew that we’d continue to create opportunities.
“Let’s use the frustration of it to perform. I think that’s the big thing.
“There’s no good me being in there ranting and raving because there’s nothing to rant about, apart from maybe the guy out in the middle.
“I bit my lip. It hurts a bit now! But I’m just pleased that our players got a reward for their performance.”
Bristol City have lost only one of their opening five games and are on eight points heading into the international break.
“We created a lot of chances and we have done in our away games so far,” said Pearson.
“The goal we conceded was a sloppy one from our perspective, but Swansea didn’t create too many chances in that first half.
“They went a bit more direct when they went behind and Max (O’Leary) had to make a couple of saves.
“It was a bit tighter but we felt we looked like creating chances on the counter because we’ve got pace in the team.
“You’ve got to move the ball quickly and we always felt we could get some success in wide areas. But to do that you’ve got to have the intention of getting forward.”
Swansea have yet to win in the league under new boss Michael Duff after drawing two and losing three of their opening five games.
Duff signed Bashir Humphreys, Josh Tymon, Jamal Lowe and Kristian Pedersen on Friday’s transfer deadline day and believes Swansea will be stronger when they return to action against derby rivals Cardiff on September 16.
“We’ve got four new players that will give us a better balance,” said Duff.
“There’s good competition for places now. People need to put their hands up. The season almost starts now.
“I thought we were poor. I thought we were slow, we were pedestrian, with and without the ball and we didn’t do the basics well enough.
“We started the game well on the front foot, went 1-0 up but then went passive. We gave two poor goals away.
“It’s a difficult game if you don’t do the basics properly. We didn’t get on the front foot at all, we weren’t aggressive enough.”
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