Bristol City boss Nigel Pearson praised Sunderland after the sides fought out a 1-1 draw at the Stadium of Light - saving his ire for referee Gavin Ward. The Black Cats took the lead on the hour through Jack Clarke, before an injury-time penalty allowed Nakhi Wells to equalise and extend the visitors' unbeaten run to eight league games and 11 in all competitions.
And for Sunderland, the draw meant they ended the weekend as they began in fifth place, as they stretched their own unbeaten run to five league games. Pearson was complementary about Tony Mowbray's side, saying: "They're a good team, very good.
"Tony has his principles that he sticks to and they play an attractive brand of football. We play our own way, we're probably a bit more of a counter-attacking side but we did feel that if we had some spells of possession we could make it more difficult for them, and it turned out to be the case in the second half.
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"I thought we gave it away a bit too much in the first half - it's always fascinating when you get two young sides with different styles. They were both trying to win the game, I think you could see that.
"Both teams could have won it. Max [O'Leary, the Bristol City goalkeeper] made a couple of really important saves for us at 1-0 down because we were pushing players forward at that stage.
"I thought we deserved something from a good game of football between two promising, young teams. We didn't want to come here with the intention of taking a point and the overall game reflected that.
"The important thing for us was that our players got a reward for another positive performance which showed the character of them as players. We showed a resilience that I was very pleased to see."
But while Pearson was happy with a point, he was furious with Ward for the way he dealt with a situation on the quarter-hour mark when Bristol defender Rob Atkinson suffered a suspected cruciate ligament injury in an innocuous challenge with Amad. The defender went down in obvious pain in front of the Bristol dugout, off the field of play, and that meant Ward allowed play to continue.
The game restarted with a throw-in where Atkinson was receiving treatment which saw the players having to navigate their way around him, and a few seconds later a clearance hit the stricken player before he was eventually taken down the tunnel on a stretcher. Pearson said: "I wasn't happy with how Rob was treated when he was off the pitch.
"He was quite clearly in pain and it was potentially a quite serious injury. We'll have to wait for a scan but for the officials to be happy with more or less trampling on him on the side, I think was a disgrace personally.
"He was in pain and we needed to move him safely. I just thought that was really poor."
Pearson was asked whether Atkinson had potentially sustained a cruciate ligament injury and said: "It's possible - it may be. I heard the contact and I could see he was in pain straight away, which is why I am particularly irritated by the lack of care that he got from the officials.
"That's where they should step in. I know the crowd are going to be disgruntled and I understand that but that's a part of away games.
"Especially when you play at a place like this when there are 40,000 [fans] - it's quite partisan. It's a fantastic atmosphere and that's part and parcel of it, but, the player's safety comes first."
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