Nigel Pearson wants his Bristol City players to take a long hard look at themselves after they slumped to a 3-1 defeat at Blackpool

CJ Hamilton, Gary Madine and Josh Bowler grabbed the goals for the Tangerines as Nahki Wells’ late strike proved nothing more than a consolation at Bloomfield Road.

The Robins have now shipped a damaging 54 Championship goals this season, the second most in the division.

A 14-point gap from the bottom three means they are unlikely to be dragged into a relegation scrap but Pearson pulled no punches after a difficult day on the seaside.

The former Leicester boss fumed: “Unfortunately, the levels on individual’s performances go from one extreme to another at the moment.

“When we concede goals like we did today, there’s not too much more I have to say.

“The first two goals are avoidable because we had opportunities to clear. All three goals are regrettable and avoidable and it’s disappointing.

“We can’t expect to have to score two and three goals to get anything out of games.

“That puts us in a difficult position when we’re looking to build on positive performances. Today’s a very disappointing day in that regard.

“The first goal we’ve had two chances to clear the ball and we haven’t done so. The second one’s just not staying with markers and the third one’s a poor goal to give away.

“We’ve talked about exactly that situation in the build-up to the game.”

The result meant Neil Critchley’s confident Blackpool stretched their recent unbeaten run to three games, leaving them within five points of forcing their way into the top six.

Hamilton and Madine struck in the space of four frantic first-half minutes before just three minutes after the restart, Bowler netted to give City a mountain to climb.

Wells pulled one back with four minutes remaining but the damage had been done to leave the Robins without a win in their last three matches.

Critchley said: “It’s not often you can use the word comfortable in the Championship.

“I was thinking when I was driving in for the game that I can’t remember a time when we’ve won and my heart wasn’t racing at the end of the game because we were 1-0 up or 2-1 up or something.

“Today we were deserved victors, I thought. We played really well and scored some good goals – the only blemish was the goal we conceded.

“I was really pleased with the performance. We’re in good form and I thought that showed today.

“The goals are things we have been working on. When the work you do on the training pitch comes off it makes all the work worthwhile.

“I said yesterday in a meeting it’s about time we scored from a set-piece and we did.

“Two goals in quick succession settled us down, and the third goal after half-time was very important.”