Keith Millen admitted his side's "poor" defending was in urgent need of improvement after the 3-3 draw with Barnsley at Ashton Gate.
The manager's first home game in charge was tarnished by a host of sloppy defending, allowing the visitors to storm into 2-0 and 3-2 leads.
However, Keith was also quick to extenuate the positives, namely the character his players showed to comeback and secure a draw.
Speaking on Player, the manager said: "Our defending was poor, there's no hiding away from that fact. I've told the lads that and we have a lot of work to do defensively.
"On the flip side we scored three goals and kept going. Their heads could have easily dropped at one stage and I actually thought we might nick it at the end.
"It's not the sort of game you want to see (as a manager). We worked on the shape for several days, all on the back of a strong defensive display at Doncaster, but I didn't see that coming.
"We'll watch the video. Individuals needs to defend better and as a unit it's the same story."
Andy Gray should have scored a 16-minute hat-trick to seal victory for Barnsley, but after netting on four and 12 minutes, he wasted a glorious chance from six yards.
City hit back with two goals in three minutes from Marvin Elliott and Albert Adomah. However, another defensive lapse hit City in the second half as Adam Hammill sailed through to score, only for a David Clarkson's penalty to bag the hosts a point.
"Our defending was poor, there's no hiding away from that fact."
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"If [Andy Gray] would have scored a third (on 16 minutes) that would have killed the game," admitted Keith. "It would have been a long way back from 3-0 down.
"Of course we had given a penalty away before that, another one, and that's really disappointing because we shouldn't be going to ground in the 18-yard box.
"At half-time I said to the lads that a clean sheet in the second half would win us the game, I really felt that. However, we let them go through again and thankfully we got the penalty for Clarky to earn us a point."
Cole Skuse was stretchered off after eight minutes with a knee problem. "We'll assess it over the weekend and get a scan," said Keith, "but it's too early to say how bad it is at the moment."
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