Bristol City captain Louis Carey insists pride will be the spur when he leads the team out to face Coca-Cola Championship rivals Sheffield United at Ashton Gate tomorrow.

Carey and his Bristol City team-mates are still hurting after being beaten 4-1 at promotion favourites West Bromwich Albion last Saturday.

But the Bristolian said there is a collective determination to put things right in front of a partisan Ashton Gate crowd.

City have not lost a home game in the Championship since December last year and Carey declared: "We're proud of that record.

"We've been strong at Ashton Gate and the lads are determined to bounce back and keep that record going.

"We are also proud of our defensive record, which we feel has been one of the best in the Championship over the last few years.

"No-one likes losing 4-1 and the West Brom game was a bad day at the office for us. We were far too open as a team and were punished for it.

"These horrible results happen from time to time and we all want to get it out of our system as quickly as possible. We need to bounce back, and the best way to do that is to get back to what we do best and beat Sheffield United.

"Our supporters were still singing and shouting for us when we were 4-0 down and we know they are behind us. After what happened, it will be good to get back to playing at Ashton Gate, where we are always strong."

City boss Gary Johnson made his players watch video recordings of their performance at the Hawthorns and challenged them to take responsibility and improve as individuals.

Carey said: "Everyone has worked hard this week and none of the lads have been shirking. We want to put things right and no-one has been shirking or hiding in the treatment room.

"We went away and looked at our own performances as individuals and then came back to work as a team. There has been a real intensity to training and we've all responded. The quality has been excellent and it shows how determined we are to put in a good team performance against Sheffield United."

City have responded positively to heavy defeats in the past, notably after losing 6-0 at Ipswich and 4-1 at West Brom two seasons ago, and Carey insisted team spirit will be a key ingredient.

"Whenever we've had bad defeats like this in the past, we've always come back strong and responded," he said.

"It's important we recover quickly this time and the next two games are massive in terms of our season. We have Ipswich at home next week and we know a couple of wins will take us back up the table.

"These games will not make or break our season, but we know we need to be in or around the play-offs come the turn of the year.

It says a lot about the spirit we have here that we've come back from horrible defeats before and I'm sure we can come back again."

Bristol City left-back Jamie McAllister has recovered from the injury which forced him to limp off at West Brom and Johnson is expected to keep changes to a minimum. But Bradley Orr is still sidelined by an Achilles problem and Cole Skuse will again deputise at right-back.