Johnson Hurting After Wednesday Late Show

Johnson’s men were clinical in the first half, scoring twice through Tammy Abraham, and resolute when they needed to be to go in at the interval 2-0 up.

Steven Fletcher pulled one back for the hosts, who were then reduced to ten men when Sam Hutchinson was dismissed for bringing down Marlon Pack in the box.

When Lee Tomlin struck the post from the resulting penalty, the ball bounced out and Wednesday broke with a move halted when Gary O’Neil appeared to win the ball with a sliding tackle.

Instead referee Darren Bond issued a second yellow card to the City skipper, and the home team drew level through Barry Bannan before Kieran Lee won it deep into stoppage time.

“I think the turning point in the game is quite obvious – that’s not a secret to anybody,” said Johnson of the missed penalty and ensuing red card for O’Neil, speaking to Bristol City Player HD.

“Gary O’Neil says he got a foot on the ball. I haven’t seen it yet so it’ll be interesting to see if he has or not. If he has, the referee has let us down. If he hasn’t, it was a good decision.

“I know we’re a young side and this is probably part of the ups and downs, because we lost our leader when Gary went off, but I still think we’ve got to be tougher and harder.

“I’m really hurting this evening, but we’ve got to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off.

“Tammy Abraham was outstanding, working his socks off, but there are a couple I’m not happy with at all. They will know that.

“In the first half we were superb. We set up really well defensively and changing the two midfielders gave us energy.

“We started off the second half well enough, but they scored from a set-piece, which is disappointing.

“We then had the penalty and should’ve scored it, but unfortunately it was all downhill from there.

“There were five or six who came out of it really strongly – I’ll celebrate those positives.”