Scott Brown branded his Fleetwood Town side 'exceptional' as they followed up creating FA Cup history once again with a stunning win on the road at Charlton.
The Celtic hero was delighted at the efforts from his side as they dug deep to claim the three points to top off a brilliant week after knocking Sheffield Wednesday out of the fourth round reply to set up a clash with English Championship runaway leaders Burnley. Hoops legend Brown hailed the impact of the subs who provided that extra spark and energy after the exploits of Tuesday night while he revealed his half-time message to his side.
He told Fleetwood's official website : “I thought we were exceptional, we worked hard and had to dig deep at points, and then we saw 12 minutes on the board at the end – I’ve never seen that before so that’s something different. I asked the lads at half-time to get a clean sheet in the second half and that’s exactly what they’ve done.
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“The subs that came on really helped us; they freshened the legs up and gave us that extra little bit of energy as well. We had to change it up a bit from Tuesday night as it’s hard for the lads to go Saturday-Tuesday consistently and we also had to keep one eye on the fixture coming up too.
“We’ve got a good squad, we need everyone together, and it shows the willingness of the lads to go to the end – we even looked like we could have got a few extra goals at the end there. The sending-off changed the game, but I felt we were always in it from start to finish."
He continued: “It was a great goal from [Shaun] Rooney to start with and with the [Harrison] Holgate one, he showed good timing as he managed to lose his man in the box and it was a great finish. For H coming back in after not playing that much, and having that much of an impact, has been exceptional.
“It shows you that even if you aren’t playing, you have to keep yourselves fit as there is always a chance to come back into the squad as there will be suspensions and injuries. You need to make sure you are ready to, and he certainly was ahead of these last two games.
“Roons has just told me he is the joint-top goal scorer so I don’t know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing! It was a great finish, we always talk about the full-backs coming onto the ball, it was a great touch from him, and a brilliant finish – he’s scored some big goals for us. He was my first signing so it’s good to see him doing well.”
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