Nigel Pearson was in no mood to blame fatigue, whether it be mental or physical, on Bristol City’s performance at Cardiff City as they were beaten 2-0 in their first league defeat since Boxing Day.
City made the trip along the M4 at the end of an eight-day period in which they had beaten Hull City at home in the Championship and then lost 3-0 to Manchester City in the FA Cup; of the starting XI that took to the field against the Bluebirds, 10 had started both previous fixtures.
A Sory Kaba header and Jaden Philogene’s strike from outside the box decided the contest as the Robins lacked their usual zip and pace in transition, which have been hallmarks of their previous 12-match unbeaten run after Christmas.
But Pearson claimed the display was more about his team being “careless” on the ball and/or not moving it quickly enough when they had possession. They did create some good openings with Anis Mehmeti denied in the first half but Ryan Allsop’s sprawling save after Alex Scott’s header was cleared off the line. Mehmeti also blazed a shot into the stands when sent through by Scott in the second half.
“If that (fatigue) is the case, I’m not going to use that as an excuse and the players don’t either,” Pearson said. “The players are really frustrated because they know that today is in some ways a bit of a missed opportunity. We had control at times, but I would say they always looked pretty dangerous. They decided to play quite a bit of percentage football and then have some individuals that give them a bit of a different spark.
“I suppose when you lose local derbies it becomes a bigger irritant in that regard. I would prefer that if we lose a local derby, it would be blood and thunder but it just sort of fizzled out for us. But I’m not using the fatigue line, we’ve done pretty well over quite a long period of time but now we have to respond midweek and that’s always something that we should be up for.”
That midweek game is a long trip to Neil Warnock’s Huddersfield Town in which City are likely to be without midfielder Joe Williams and defender Tomas Kalas after they sustained injuries in the defeat to the Bluebirds.
Pearson doesn’t have a great deal of room to manoeuvre in terms of his squad options with just one fit senior centre-back in Zak Vyner and three in midfield in Scott, Matty James and veteran Andy King.
He does, at least, retain options in the final third with Nahki Wells, Harry Cornick and Andi Weimann all getting on the field against Cardiff having not started the contest, albeit with none of the trio able to impact proceedings.
“We didn’t move the ball quick enough which is a frustration, and we couldn’t find enough moments of quality because look it was clear they were prepared to let us have the ball in wide areas, especially in full-back positions and we just couldn’t move with enough purpose,” Pearson added. “It was a bit of a careless performance in some ways.
“But, look, the players have been brilliant over a sustained period it’s not about being overly critical we had plenty of the ball today, we showed a bit of patience, but we didn’t show patience often enough to find those added moment and on top of that it’s just one of those frustrating performances where things didn’t happen for us.
“When the opportunities came , we weren’t clinical enough and we had one or two decent opportunities but I suppose in some ways it’s one of those where I don’t think there’s been times that I’ve been critical of us in recent weeks and that’s because our performances have been really good.
"We lost the game today because the two goals that we conceded we didn’t defend with the urgency that we have done recently, it turns out to be a frustrating day.
“A frustrating end to the week. We’ve gone a long time without a defeat and a bit like our penalties, two on the trot, it’s frustrating for us.”
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