Sunday 12 April 2015 09:44, UK
Nigel Pearson is confident his Leicester City side can avoid relegation after their last-gasp victory over West Brom breathed life into their season.
Trailing 2-1 at half time after a subdued first-half display, Pearson reshuffled his side and orchestrated a second-half fight-back as Robert Huth and Jamie Vardy goals sealed consecutive league victories for the first time since September.
Buoyed by the result, Pearson believes his side showed great resilience at The Hawthorns and can avoid an immediate return to the Championship.
“I believe we can avoid relegation, but there is still work to do,” he told Sky Sports. “Back-to-back wins at this stage are very important and we’ve got to try and make it three now.
“We’ve probably used up all our indifferent spells. We’ve had a tough season in many ways but I can’t do anything other than praise the way we got back into the game.
“We started, probably for the first time, a little nervous and we made too many unforced errors but in fairness to the players they continued to work hard and we got better as the game went on.
“We deserved to go on and win after we got the equaliser. I’m very pleased for us today but it’s back to making sure we try and sustain this revival.”
Pearson’s deployment of a 3-5-2 formation at the interval turned the game in favour of the visiting Foxes, who went on to control the second period.
And, while explaining the dangers of the tactical change, Pearson believes the adjustment allowed members of his squad to utilise their pace against Albion.
“The game was going to be about whoever managed the ball better when we went to 3-5-2,” he added.
“The danger with that is that if they could get two versus one in wide areas and manage ball well they could cause us problems.
“Fortunately for us we dominated possession in the second half and caused them a lot more problems.
“We do have to try and force the issue while we have players with the pace that Vardy, Nugent and Schlupp have. We’ve got to try and utilise that.
“Certainly as games have gone on we looked quite threatening. We got into a lot of promising situations but our final ball didn’t quite live up to what we would like. But we put them under enough pressure and we took our chance.”
