Bristol City boss delivers this verdict on Sunderland and blasts two key decisions from the officials

The visitors were awarded their first penalty in well over a year at the start of five minutes of stoppage time when Trai Hume brought Jay Da Silva down in the box, allowing Nakhi Wells to cancel out Jack Clarke's superb goal earlier in the second half.

Pearson praised his goalkeeper Max O'Leary from preventing his side from falling further behind after Sunderland began to dominate following Clarke's goal, but felt his players showed their resilience to stay in the game.

They had also had the better chances in an impressive first-half performance, denied only by a superb Anthony Patterson save when Anis Mehmeti looked certain to score.

"They're a good team, very good," Pearson said of Sunderland.

"Tony has his principles that he sticks to and they play an attractive brand of football. We play our own way, we're probably a bit more of a counter-attacking side but we did feel that if we had some spells of possession we could make it more difficult for them, and it turned out to be the case in the second half.

"I thought we gave it away a bit too much in the first half - it's always fascinating when you get two young sides with different styles. They were both trying to win the game, I think you could see that.

"Both teams could have won it. Max made a couple of really important saves for us at 1-0 down because we were pushing players forward at that stage. I thought we deserved something from a good game of football between two promising, young teams.

"We didn't want to come here with the intention of taking a point and the overall game reflected that.

"The important thing for us was that our players got a reward for another positive performance which showed the character of them as players. We showed a resilience that I was very pleased to see."

Pearson was relieved to see his side finally awarded a penalty after their long wait, but also said that he felt they should have had one in the first half.

He was also hugely critical of the officials for allowing play to continue while Rob Atkinson received treatment close to the side of the pitch early in the game - the defender has suffered a suspected ACL injury.

"The officiating was very irritating I think for both sides," Pearson said.

"We felt we should have had a penalty in the first half when Sam Bell was pushed in the box. I wasn't happy with how Rob was treated when he was off the pitch - he was clearly in pain.

"It's potentially quite a serious injury, we'll have to wait for the scan. For the officials to be happy with him more or less being trampled on was a disgrace, he was in pain and we needed to move him safely. I just thought that was really poor. The player's safety has to come first."