We Stopped Playing - Cotterill

The visitors enjoyed the better of the first half only to fall behind within seconds of the restart to Luke Chambers’ towering header.

Luke Freeman and Jonathan Kodjia scored twice in four second-half minutes to turn the game in City’s favour, but Cotterill said his team took a step back from that point, allowing the hosts to draw level through Ryan Fraser’s 86th minute leveller.

“We should have had three points today,” the manager told Bristol City Player HD.

“We got the goal (the equaliser) after a bad start to the second half, and then started to pass the ball with some tempo.

“But after we scored our second goal we stopped playing. Their direct play started to come into it again, so we made a rod off our own back with that.

“When you’ve got a team who aren’t winning and you get your noses in front, all of a sudden a bit of indecision creeps in as to whether you should attack or not, and I think we got caught up in that a little bit.

“We’ve got a young team and it got caught not having enough nous in it.

“They haven’t had too many looks at our goal but they’re awkward to play against. They play with a high tempo and we didn’t allow that today.

“On turnover we could’ve been slightly better, but when you’re a team that isn’t used to winning, you might end up taking a step back, and I think we did that.

“Had we won three, four or five games, I think we’d have gone on to win this one. And I think we would’ve won it 3-1, not 2-1.”

City named only six substitutes for the match after Scott Wagstaff injured a calf muscle in training on Friday, whilst on-loan goalkeeper Ben Hamer has returned briefly to parent club Leicester City for tests following headaches this week.

Korey Smith missed the fixture with the groin strain he picked up against Reading last time out. It is not yet known whether the midfielder will be fit for the home game against MK Dons at Ashton Gate next Saturday.