Pearson: We Showed Quality

Anthony Knockaert and David Nugent scored for City either side of a Bakary Sako strike for the visitors to seal a fifth straight npower Championship win and move the Foxes three points clear of third placed Hull City.

We’ve got a few of those [match winners], and it’s not always those that can score goals that are match winners, those can be defensive players as well,” Pearson told LCFC.com.

“We played better, there’s no doubt about that, but all credit to Wolves, they played with a lot of spirit and showed a bit of quality tonight, but we managed to win a tight game with a couple of bits of quality ourselves.

“I think them scoring the equaliser at the time they did had a big bearing on the next 15-20 minutes, and they controlled the vast majority of that.

“The way they set up tonight with five in midfield made their intentions clear in that they were going to make it difficult for us to get any momentum attacking-wise, and I thought we dealt with that very, very well.

“The irony is that we scored two goals on the counter attack against them.”

Knockaert’s 24th minute opener was his eighth goal of what has been an impressive first season in a blue shirt so far, and the manager admitted that he was pleased to see the Frenchman return after an ankle injury.

He said: “He had a heavy knock to his foot and we made sure we had it scanned, so it was always a calculated risk playing him. 

“The bottom line is that if he wasn’t available and it was something more serious – the rehab would have been the same. 

“It was very pleasing to have him available, and I thought he worked very hard tonight in both directions, and I’ve seen an improvement in his ability to affect the game. I’m pleased with his contribution.

“We’ve got a variety of options in forwards positions at the moment and that’s nice to have. 

“I think going into this crucial part of the season, it’s not easy, and we’ve managed to start the New Year well, but there’s a long way to go and it still remains very, very tight.

“I don’t think it’s prudent to make assumptions that we’ve cracked it because there’s a long way to go. 

“There will be a few twists and turns yet that we’ll have to deal with, but the focus has to be on our own fixtures.

“You’re only really as good as your last result, regardless of what has gone prior to that, and our focus is on the next fixture and trying to get the performance and more importantly the result right.”