Cotterill Salutes Set-Piece City

Hosts Crawley Town made life difficult for the Sky Bet League One leaders on a bobbly pitch in a game starved of clear chances from open play.

Instead Aden Flint headed Cotterill’s team in front three minutes into the second half from Luke Freeman’s cross after a quickly taken throw-in by Korey Smith.

But City were undone from a long throw on the hour and needed Luke Ayling to keep up his happy habit of leaving it late against Crawley Town as he nodded home a Freeman corner six minutes from time.

“They (set-pieces) are important all the time,” the boss told Bristol City Player.

"There’s enough time when you’re a professional footballer or a football manager to work on them, and we’ve done that.

“We don’t just rely on them, but when it’s a tight game and you get a set-play, you can always be a threat on them. They’re a bigger team than we are, but our movement was first-class.

“Luke Ayling was outstanding and there was no better person than him to score the winning goal. We spoke about their zones and he was obviously listening!

“You can see the sort of results they (Crawley) have had here – beating Preston and drawing with MK Dons with ten men, as well as the result against Sheffield United the other week (1-1).

“This one was always going to be a very tough game for us. Any team down there is absolutely fighting for their lives.

“There was quite a strong wind out there but in the second half I thought we were by far the better team and in the end thoroughly deserved our three points.”