Paul Caddis tucked away a late penalty for the hosts after Britt Assombalonga's handball in the penalty area earned him a red card just minutes after he had hauled the Reds level at St Andrew's.
Pearce admitted that he had seen the offence and praised the match officials for making the right call. The Nottingham Forest manager also stated that the nature of his side's defeat would not act as a 'smokescreen' to a poor performance on the back of last weekend's comfortable success at Wolves.
A key word that was missing from Pearce's comments was 'but' which would have appeared from many Premier Leage managers even if they had been honest enough to admit that the right decision had been made.
The 'but' in this case was the referee himself who had not spotted the infringement and was seemingly alerted to it by the fourth official on the sidelines. It is easy to imagine that being the focus of an after-match interview with Messrs Mourinho or Wenger while even lower down the Premier League this season we have seen bosses such as Garry Monk of Swansea or Mark Hughes at Stoke talk about perceived 'bias' against their team.
Nobody would doubt Pearce's desire to win any game that he is involved in but hopefully he can continue to be completely straightforward in his assessment of matches while still bringing success to his beloved Reds.