Defiant Bristol City boss Gary Johnson is refusing to call time on his team's fading promotion hopes, writes Andy Stockhausen.

Failure to beat Preston North End at Ashton Gate in Saturday's Sky-televised tea-time fixture dealt a bitter blow to City's hopes of reaching the Championship play-offs for a second successive season.

Held 1-1 by the Lilywhites, the Robins are ninth in the table, now five points behind sixth-placed Cardiff, with just five games to play.

But manager Johnson is not about to throw in the towel and the Londoner insists his team will "keep fighting" while a top-six finish remains a possibility.

"You wouldn't expect me to concede anything at this stage and I'm not going to," said Johnson, who watched Nicky Maynard fire his side in front, only for French defender Youl Mawene to poach an equaliser 20 minutes from time.

"There are still 15 points to play for and, while there's still a chance, we'll hang on in there.

"It is still mathematically possible for us to do it and we're in a better position than had we lost the game. This result just makes it more difficult for us, but while there's a chance there is still hope.

"We're still competing for a play-off place with just five games to go and that's a much better situation than some of the others are in. There are some teams much bigger than us, who have been in the Premier League recently, who are worrying about relegation."

City's prospects were further diminished by Sheffield United's 2-0 home victory over Ipswich Town and the point Burnley secured at Derby County. And Johnson admits his team must now win their next two games to have any chance of closing the gap.

City visit relegation-threatened Nottingham Forest on Saturday before hosting Ipswich on Easter Monday and the manager concluded: "We have to win both games and then see where we are.

"We can't afford any more slip-ups and we'll make sure the boys are up for it and that we put a team out that is equipped to win those games."

City have drawn more than half of 21 home games in the Championship this season and Johnson is the first to admit failure to beat opponents at Ashton Gate is costing his team dear.

Maynard's eleventh goal of the season looked likely to deliver win number eight at home until a comedy of errors handed Preston an equaliser on a plate.

Bradley Orr needlessly conceded a corner and Dele Adebola compounded the error by leaving Mawene free to score from the resultant flag kick.

Johnson said: "I'm disappointed, because mistakes have cost us. When you make two mistakes like that at this level, you generally concede a goal.

"Brad's disappointed at giving away the corner when he wasn't under pressure and Dele has lost his man at the set piece.

"I thought they both played well and I thought we played well as a team. We looked more threatening than we have done for a while and we should have been in front at half time.

"We scored a fantastic goal and it would have been great had it won the game. But we needed a second goal and our end product wasn't as good as it could have been."