Pearson Driven By Century Target

A goal in either half from Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Wes Morgan sealed City’s 30th league win of the campaign, and edged them closer to a century of points, with an impressive tally of 99 now on the board.

In the league champions’ penultimate game of the campaign, the manager made six changes to his starting line up, but in what has been a recurring theme this season, those players that came in performed brilliantly.

“I’m just delighted that we’ve illustrated that we’ve got a strong squad and they’re capable of performing at this stage of the season,” Pearson said after the final whistle.

“It can be difficult, but the players have got to try to enjoy the experience of being champions early. The only way you enjoy that is to play well and win. Hopefully we can do well again next week and maybe hit the 100 or 102 points mark.

“It’s really nice to have something else to focus on (the 100-point mark). That’s helped us to get the players to keep their concentration levels high. We had a bit of a blip when we played Brighton after promotion was secured, but I think since then the performances that we’ve produced have been very good.

“What really pleased me today was that we were able to make changes, but still play exceptionally well.”

Taylor-Fletcher’s angled drive got the Foxes’ noses in front following a great team move, before Morgan bundled home a James set piece at the near post – something that pleased his manager greatly.

He said: “We’ve had a few discussions where we feel we should have scored a lot more goals from set plays. The delivery has been excellent, but we’ve not always managed to score the number of goals that we should.

“Today we’ve scored two really good goals. It was a really good finish from Gary Taylor-Fletcher and for us to be able to finish the game a bit easier by getting a second goal was important for us.”

Despite Huddersfield enjoying sporadic spells of pressure, the quality shone through for City, and the manager was again keen to point out just what a remarkable achievement it is to get promoted from the Championship.

He said: “To win this division is very tough, and I think it’s one of the hardest in the world to be successful in. It’s always difficult for sides to come down from the Premier League and get promoted straight away.

“There are a number of big sides over the years who have struggled to come back up. We’ve been out of the top-flight for 10 years and it has been a frustrating time, but what it shows you is that it is a really tough league.”