Rotherham United 1-3 Bristol City: Robins end winless run

Joe Williams celebrates his goal for Bristol City against RotherhamImage source, Rex Features
Image caption,

Midfielder Joe Williams' goal for Bristol City was his first of the season

Bristol City ended a run of five Championship matches without a win with a victory at Rotherham.

Millers defender Wes Harding turned the ball into his own net trying to clear a cross, to give City an early lead.

Chiedozie Ogbene headed Rotherham level but it was short-lived, with Joe Williams putting the visitors back in front five minutes later.

Cameron Pring sealed the Robins' win, heading in from a corner for his first goal for the club.

The win at the New York Stadium is only the third on the road for Bristol City this season.

Harding inadvertently opened the scoring when he attempted to clear a searching cross into the box from Nahki Wells, but instead sliced the ball into the goal.

Rotherham hit back after breaking on the counter-attack through Brooke Norton-Cuffy. He looped the ball into the box over Pring and picked out an unmarked Ogbene, who had a simple header in for his seventh goal of the campaign.

Yet the Robins were swiftly back in front after a goal that followed almost the same build-up as their first. This time it was Tommy Conway who crossed into the box from the left, and Williams tapped in.

In a second half with few clear-cut chances, keeper Viktor Johansson produced an excellent one-handed save to palm away a low shot from Alex Scott that was heading towards the bottom corner.

But when Scott delivered the resulting corner kick, Johansson had no chance of stopping Pring's header from going in, as the 24-year-old academy graduate opened his account for City.

Rotherham manager Matt Taylor told BBC Radio Sheffield:

"Uncharacteristically poor defensively, certainly in that first half. A game where we were on the ascendancy, on top in terms of where we wanted to be on that pitch. The simplicity and basic nature of the goals was a real kick in the teeth.

"We got back in the game in terms of the equaliser and then for it (conceding a goal) to happen again was even worse.

"Their front two caused us a problem all afternoon and as much as I tried to fix it we couldn't quite get the platform from that back line and it was never there second half.

"We were forced to chase the game on the back of the first half, errors and the goals and the nature of the goals, and then our quality let us down. Unfortunately our quality let us down in precious moments when we were trying to force the issue."

Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson told BBC Radio Bristol:

"We've been a while since we've won games in a positive fashion. I thought today we really showed positive intent against a side who will upset teams this year, there's no doubt about that.

"Good result for us. We could make it slightly easier for ourselves at times but there was so much positive intent that I think I'll make allowances for that.

"As they illustrated early on, any ball down the side they chased right to the very end of it and we just wanted to do the same to them. They normally start games well so it was imperative for us that we put them on the back foot.

"We conceded an equaliser when actually we maybe should have been 2-0 up ourselves seconds before that. We played with a positive manner."

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