Bristol City boss Derek McInnes was pleased with the way his side got the 'ugly' things right in order to secure a 1-1 draw with West Ham.
Allardyce concedes automatic promotion unlikely
Bristol City manager Derek McInnes was pleased with the way his side got the 'ugly' things right in order to secure a 1-1 draw at home to promotion chasing West Ham on Tuesday.
The Robins now have safety in their sights as they sit five points clear of the relegation zone with two games to play.
They had to come from behind to secure the point at Ashton Gate though, with defender James Tomkins nodding the Hammers in front from Mark Noble's free-kick after 25 minutes.
However, the hosts were level four minutes later when Cole Skuse's speculative 25-yard effort somehow squirmed past goalkeeper Robert Green.
"There's not many teams that will get a fluency against West Ham. It's the way it is. You've got to do the ugly side of the game well, you've got to stand up to it," said McInnes.
"West Ham are a big, big side with a lot of experience and they know how to win games and they ask questions of you so you won't get a lot of teams playing against West Ham with a lot of fluency.
"We showed enough of the right qualities to get our point and we more than earned it.
"I wasn't expecting it to be a pretty night, I wasn't expecting it to be expansive. I was expecting it to be naughty at times, I was expecting it to be physical and that was exactly what it was."
A win at home to Barnsley on Saturday will secure Championship survival with a game to spare, but McInnes is not getting carried away just yet.
"There's still work to be done," he added. "We've only given ourselves an opportunity to finish the job off and it's important that myself and the players put all our energy and focus on Barnsley on Saturday.
"Hopefully we can get it sold out and with the fans' backing, and the players getting every encouragement from them, then we'll make it a good day Saturday.
"There's still work to be done, there's no back-slapping yet, the players need to dust themselves down and get themselves ready to try to take care of business on Saturday."
Frustrated
Meanwhile, West Ham boss Sam Allardyce was left frustrated after seeing his side miss a host of second half chances.
With five points now separating themselves and second placed Southampton with two games to play, Allardyce concedes his side are unlikely to secure automatic promotion.
"I've been looking at the chances we've created and it's just sickening that we didn't have the quality of finish we needed with so many opportunities," he said.
"From start to finish we always looked like the dominant force, we created so many chances and to finish 1-1 is very disappointing considering the performance was so good.
"It's difficult as we know [catching Southampton]. We wanted to stay in with a fighting chance, winning today and keeping that little bit closer to Southampton.
"We know we have to ask someone to do us a favour, and even if we get that favour from Middlesbrough we've still got to go and beat Leicester and it's still difficult for us."
