Nigel Pearson says his Bristol City side missed an opportunity to get back to winning ways in their 0-0 draw at Huddersfield Town but was once again frustrated with referee Leigh Doughty's decision not to award a first-half penalty.
In an opening 45 minutes in which the visitors dominated, Mark Sykes was barged in the back by Josh Ruffels following a delivery into the area with replays showing he made little attempt to play the ball. The City winger's appeals were futile with the City dugout also protesting to the fourth official.
In a goalless encounter, which won't live long in the memory, the first half had little fluidity with Neil Warnock's Huddersfield happy to disrupt play with a series of strong tackles and tactical fouls.
The hosts will feel they could have had a penalty themselves when Jay Dasilva took down Brahima Diarra inside the area. Doughty, who was the official when Pearson threatened to quit the game in August over the standard of refereeing, also failed to send off Matty Pearson when he flew into a dangerous challenge on Matty James in the first half.
After that game Pearson said: "(There were) penalty shouts at both ends, and frustrating officiating again for both sides as much as anything. It was a game we feel that we've had opportunities.
"I'm going to be animated when the officiating is as inconsistent as it is. That's referring to the penalty - if it was outside the box it would be a free-kick in the blink of the eye but because it's in the box it doesn't matter.
"I'm sure Neil will talk about their shout for a penalty too. It just bemuses me, but I don't really want to waste too much energy talking about it."
It was a game that wasn't littered with opportunities but City will feel they did enough to win the game. The best opportunity fell to Cam Pring in the first half when his header was superbly saved by Tomas Vaclik from close range.
Sykes was also denied at the back post in the first half while Vaclik was also called into action in the second period when he tipped over Jonathan Hogg's goalbound header with Alex Scott waiting to head home Anis Mehmeti's cross.
Max O'Leary had little to do throughout but made an important save in the final moments to deny Josh Koroma moments after Andi Weimann cleared off his own line.
When asked if it felt like a missed opportunity, Pearson added: "In many ways, yes. I thought we played with decent control in the first half, and made some decent opportunities.
"We were a little bit careless in the latter part of the game. It was pretty open but I think they had to approach the game in a more positive way in the second half. I can't really remember them having too many opportunities in the first half.
"Ours was a very honest performance and they showed some fight. They've had some difficult results recently and they were very committed.
"So fair play to them as well and they put us under pressure at the very end as well. So we stood up to that but we did make some naive decisions towards the end which actually as an away side, we could have controlled the tempo a little better but there were opportunities, let's be honest."
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