Jones - Pressure on us

Cardiff lead Leicester 1-0 after first-leg clash

Last updated: 9th May 2010   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Jones - Pressure on us

Jones and Pearson: Test wits

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Cardiff City manager Dave Jones believes his team's first-leg play-off semi-final win over Leicester increases the pressure on the Bluebirds.

A 1-0 victory at the Walkers Stadium puts Cardiff in pole position going into the second Championship tie in Wales on Wednesday.

Peter Whittingham's superb free-kick was the only thing that separated the two sides and while Jones knows that his team have got one foot at Wembley, he realises the pressure has been cranked up.

"I think it adds extra pressure being ahead going into the second game. People will be expecting us to finish the job now," he said.

"But we have only got a foot in the door, we need to make sure that we close it.

"Semi-finals and finals are life-changing events for football clubs - for the whole football club whether you are players or the girls that work in the canteen - because they get you where you want to be.

"In this case, they can get us into a division where everyone wants to play and which everyone watches.

"But we are just focused on Leicester. There have been no high-fives or back-slapping in our dressing room, we know we still have a lot of hard work to do.

"Today was about digging in and we are going to have to do that again on Wednesday night."

Foxes reaction

Opposite number Nigel Pearson was disappointed with the narrow defeat but insists there is still a lot of football left to play.

"It is half-time in the tie and we are 1-0 down but there is still a lot of football left to play," he remarked.

"We have been 1-0 down at half-time before and turned it around so why can't we this time?

"It was always going to be a tight affair and unfortunately for us we have had a bad result, but we know what we have to do now.

"I think we played well today, I think both sides did and played without fear. It was a good performance from us but we still have more to give.

"The players deserve a lot of credit for the way they kept going right until the end and there are a lot of positives to take from it."