THOMAS Christiansen saw the confidence flood back into his Leeds United team with a thumping 3-0 victory at Bristol City.

Going into the game on a three-match Championship losing streak, the visitors dominated from the first whistle and fully deserved the success secured by two goals by Sam Saiz and one from Pierre-Michel Lasogga.

A delighted Christianson immediately dedicated the Ashton Gate victory to midfielder Stuart Dallas, who was absent following the death of his mother.

The Whites boss said: "Our thoughts are with Stewy and we wanted to put in a performance for him following the bad news that his mother had passed away.

"On behalf of myself, the players and staff, we send our condolences and assure him that this win was for him.

"I was very happy with the performance of the team. It is the same players who put us in the position we were in going into the match and today the difference was the intensity of our play.

"We knew we were up against a good side and that probably helped. We needed to be brave and believe in ourselves.

"The early goals were important and today we took our chances, whereas in other games we should have been ahead but failed to score when we might have."

Leeds took a fourth-minute lead when Lasogga slid the ball into the path of Saiz, whose right-footed shot from inside the box appeared to take a deflection to beat Frank Fielding.

Ten minutes later the Bristol goalkeeper chose to make a challenge with his feet only for the ball to run into the path of Saiz, who fired home from 12 yards.

Lasogga capitalised on poor marking to head home a Kalvin Phillips corner to complete the scoring after 67 minutes.

Both sides were reduced to ten men near the end when Leeds full-back Gaetano Berardi was sent off along with Robins substitute Matt Taylor for an angry confrontation following a foul by the visiting defender.

Christiansen said: "I didn't see what happened for the sending-off but the referee told me afterwards that he had no choice. He said my player was provoked – but that is not an excuse because you need to control yourself on the pitch."

City head coach Lee Johnson had no complaints about the result. He does, however, intend to challenge the sending-off of Taylor.

"I have seen the incident again and as far as I am concerned, Matty was blameless other than to register a complaint over being fouled," he said.

"My player has a broken nose, so it was a nasty clash. We will definitely appeal the decision and I think the film evidence backs our case.

"Overall, it was a bad day at the office for us. We were weak and that is not usually the case. We were off it in the first 20 minutes and that's when the game was decided.

"Some key players were missing through injury and illness but those selected were capable of better."