Bristol City boss Nigel Pearson said his side were "second best" all afternoon as they were beaten 2-0 by Nottingham Forest.
Brennan Johnson scored his 11th goal of the season with a tidy finish after some clever footwork just before half-time; James Garner then doubled the home side's lead with a firm finish from the edge of the penalty area after good movement by Scott McKenna and Max Lowe.
It was an afternoon in which Forest dominated proceedings at the City Ground.
Steve Cooper's side enjoyed 54 per cent of the possession and had 16 shots, six of which were on-target; the away side, however, managed only five attempts with one troubling Ethan Horvath between the posts.
Speaking to the Bristol Post after the game, Pearson said: "We were second best. Second best in all departments. We were miles off it today.
"We made bad decisions and couldn’t pass the ball in midfield, consequently, we didn’t create anything.
"We made too many mistakes in the second half too. They didn’t have to play at full tilt to beat us because we had too many players having an off-day.
"We didn’t do what we talked about doing and when you’ve got players who make unforced errors and you can see that it affects their own confidence and the confidence of their teammates, we had a bad day, simple."
Pressed further on what he was disappointed with about City's execution on the pitch, he said: "We didn’t pass the ball in the areas that we talked about.
"We didn’t have many positives really today. I don’t very often say that collectively we were second best but we were for almost the entirety today."
The 2-0 win for Cooper's side means Nottingham Forest are now just three points off the Championship play-off spots.
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