City bounce back but errors prove costly

Despite a bright opening spell, he saw his City side go into half-time 3-0 down against West Brom, before a resurgence after the break.

Left-back Lloyd Kelly was an unlikely scorer with his first goal since Boxing Day to make it 3-1. But Harvey Barnes restored West Brom’s three-goal cushion before Famara Diédhiou curled home to halve the deficit late on.

City mounted pressure on their hosts and Andreas Weimann saw his penalty appeals turned down as WBA held out for the 4-2 victory.

“I thought we played some good football,” Johnson told bcfc.co.uk.

“We could have been two-nil up or at least taken one of the early chances. It was a really bright start.

Where it went wrong

“I don’t think we controlled the distances, both in and out of possession and I think inevitably, between those and a few individual errors, where we lacked the world-class, basic mindset…not moving at the right times or putting your foot through it or defending against a good side.

“It was never a game that should have gone to 4-1. We pulled it back to 4-2 and then we looked a strong side. It’s easy to play when you’re down, they (WBA) were on the ropes and we should have had a penalty when Weimann was pulled down. That might have changed the course of the game with 15 minutes left to play.”

Thoughts turn to Wigan

Johnson continued: “There were many good parts to our play, I was pleased with the second half performance because at half-time I asked for them to at least draw the half and I wanted to see the new players play with a bit of gumption and not hide, keep getting on the ball, play forward and keep playing our game.

"To be fair they did and I was pleased by that."

And humble in defeat, the City head coach added: “We have been on a good run, we were beaten fair and square by a top, related side with huge resources and we will now dust ourselves off and move on to the game on Friday.”

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