Bristol City 2-0 Luton Town: 10-man Robins claim first win of season

Bristol City's Tommy Conway (centre) celebrates doubling his team's lead against Luton

Bristol City claimed their first win of the Championship season against Luton Town despite going down to 10 men at Ashton Gate.

Nigel Pearson's team flew out of the gates as striker Nahki Wells, who was making his first start since April, fired home an Alex Scott pass into the bottom-right corner for the game's opening goal in the fifth minute.

City's second goal came from some superb build-up play when French midfielder Han-Noah Massengo threaded a pass to Andreas Weimann, who drove a low ball across the six-yard box for Tommy Conway to tap in his first league goal of the season.

Luton struggled for possession and their best chances came from striker Elijah Adebayo, who had two shots off target in the first half.

The Hatters started the second half brightly but their burst of energy was quickly stifled by City who wrestled back control.

Robins midfielder Mark Sykes was shown a red card for a two-footed tackle on Luke Freeman in the 67th minute prompting boos from the home fans.

The visitors piled on the pressure in search of a goal in the closing minutes but City defended relentlessly to close out the game in nail-biting fashion to claim their first win in four league matches this season.

The victory pushes City up to 14th in the table, with Luton - who remain without a league win with two points from four games - dropping to second bottom of the standings.

Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson told BBC Radio Bristol:

"It was a good complete team performance. Good to get a clean sheet and win the game.

"It's more frustrating that we went into tonight's game with only one point. Our start to the season doesn't reflect our performances - I think we've been playing really well.

"The front two did very well and were very lively. It was a solid all-round effort."

Luton Town manager Nathan Jones told BBC 3CR:

"I picked the wrong team. That first half, the way we defended, it was unacceptable. We tried taking shortcuts and we didn't do the basics well and it cost us the game.

"That's as poor a performance as we've had in a long time. We were second best all over and that doesn't normally happen to us.

"We've got a lot of injuries and some players are still bedding into the team. But we were just really, really poor. We couldn't have got any worse."