BEN Pearson praised Cherries for producing a "dogged performance" to defeat Barnsley, adding: "Watching it from the stands you don’t realise how bad the pitch actually was."

Philip Billing's 12th-minute header was all that separated the two sides as Cherries ended their two-game losing run with a 1-0 victory.

Barnsley, who like Cherries reached the play-offs last season, are struggling in the Championship this term.

They have won just two of their 27 matches and sit eight points adrift of safety.

Discussing the victory, Pearson told afcbTV: "It was a pretty dogged performance I’d say. It wasn’t so great on the eye.

"I thought first half we actually played quite well, we played some nice bits. In the second half we started okay and then they came onto us in the last 20 minutes.

"We won’t be pleased with how we finished the game off but I think probably watching it from the stands you don’t realise how bad the pitch actually was today.

"The conditions were tough. So I think it is just one of them where you’ve got to take the three points and move on and forget about it."

He added: "This league is full of ups and downs. You come to stadiums like this where the conditions aren’t great, the pitch isn’t great and you probably won’t play as fluid as you’d like.

"You’ve just got to pick up those three points and move on. I don’t think we can be too disheartened by the performance.

"I think consistency is key in this league, no matter how you play. Being on a tough run the past couple of weeks, just to get that win puts us in the right direction now and hopefully we can get a bit of confidence from that.

"Especially at this time of year, as I keep saying, the pitches aren’t great. I think we’re lucky at home to have a nice surface.

"A lot of teams in this division, it’ll be similar to this. It’s hard to play good football. We try our best, but you’ve got to sort of look at the conditions of the game and what time it is and just play as we can really. That’s the main thing.

"I think in spells today we played some good football and at other times we did the right thing and sometimes turned the ball. I think it was a decent performance. We’d like to improve, obviously."

Victory saw Cherries close the gap on second-placed Blackburn to one point, after they drew at Luton.