Nigel Clough believes the goalless draw at Bristol City helped to restore some Burton Albion pride after a difficult couple of weeks.

The Brewers had spent 13 days over the international break dwelling on back-to-back home humblings at the hands of Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Those results seemed to have overshadowed some promising form beforehand from Clough's side, and a response was needed at Ashton Gate.

That is exactly what Burton provided, a typically resolute defensive display preventing the in-form Robins from moving into the top two ahead of Saturday's games.

Burton Albion manager Nigel Clough and Bristol City manager Lee Johnson
Burton Albion manager Nigel Clough and Bristol City manager Lee Johnson

After taking those heavy hits at the end of September, Albion gave another reminder of their resilience to kick off their October action - and Clough knows they will have proved a point, as well as earning one.

"I hope it did for the whole squad and the whole club," said Clough when asked if another clean sheet on the road was a boost to the Brewers' defensive pride.

"When you lose two games at home 4-0, the next one is incredibly important, because everyone is looking to say, 'have they gone, are they going to be steamrolled here tonight'?

"They (Bristol) have done that to quite a few teams, and they've been scoring goals for fun the last few weeks.

"So it's good to come here and frustrate them as we did, in such a good way.

"There was only one yellow card, so we're not kicking people off the pitch, we're just getting tight and everybody did their jobs.

Stephen Warnock gets past Bristol City's Jamie Paterson

"It was a brilliant defensive performance to come and get a point and a clean sheet against a team that has been flying of late.

"It was important we put down a marker after the last two results at home that we have still got a little bit of fight in us and we've not gone just yet."