Curtis Fleming admitted his players blew out huge sighs of relief in the dressing after they survived a barrage of attacks to cling on to a nail-biting 2-1 win over Reading.
The Robins were cruising to victory after Michael Morrison's own goal doubled the host's lead after Antoine Semenyo settled the nerves with the opener in the first half.
Timm Klose then conceded a soft penalty with 15 minutes left on the clock which John Swift dispatched before The Royals bombarded City's goal as they scrambled for an equaliser.
City somehow held on to pick up their first win in three matches and Fleming felt there was no doubt that his side deserved the three points.
He said: "It was very important that we’ve conceded late goals and we needed sheer bloody-mindedness to keep the ball out of the net.
"The three points is the same whether it’s 3-0 or 3-1, it doesn’t matter. You need to keep the ball out of the net and I thought we deserved the three points.
"We were hanging on and we made it very hard for ourselves, it’s quite funny because the lads did the team talk after. I walk in and they’re all going ‘we made that hard for ourselves' so I think the three points was important, very important three points.
"We can be better, we’ve played better and come out with nothing so I think if you’d said to me after the game that we’d get three points and a 2-1, I probably would have taken it."
Fleming admitted his concerns at City's performance in the closing stages after Swift's penalty but remains adamant the result was the most important outcome of the evening.
"A couple of times I thought we could have come out and played but we tried to force it to get that ball through on goal and that's the decision making," he added.
"But it was very, very important for us to get the three points and how we did it. There's no doubt you want a perfect game but there are not many of those in the Championship. We were under pressure but we'll look at the clips and see where we can improve.
"I said to them after the game I was so happy with the effort they put in and they got their rewards tonight. It's about them."
Klose barely put a foot wrong throughout the contest until the referee pointed to the spot after he was adjudged to have fouled Tom Ince.
Fleming believes the penalty was soft and it gave Reading the confidence to claw their way back into the contest when they appeared dead and buried.
He said: "I thought the penalty looked very harsh to me. He’s [Klose] jumped and he’s put his body in but he’s 6ft5”, it’s very hard to move at that size.
"I thought that stuff brought them into the game and gave them a little bit of confidence."
Nigel Pearson missed the game with the club announcing two hours before kick-off that he underwent a scheduled routine medical procedure.
Fleming confirmed he had not spoken to the manager directly after the game but he returns from London tomorrow and is expected to be back on the touchline for Sunday's game with Swansea.
"He gets out tomorrow morning and then he’ll be back at the club," Fleming said. "I spoke to him a couple of times but not since the game, I’ll call him as soon as I’m finished. I think it was a good filler for him, the performances over the last five or six weeks have been a lot better.
"On Saturday we let ourselves down a little bit with the performance level but we’re growing and we have a belief. We played some really good stuff tonight even if we were hanging on a little bit. It’s a 96-minute game and we’ve played quite well at times tonight and could have got another goal."
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