Nigel, a clean sheet and an away victory, you must be pretty delighted with that?
Do I look it? Not really.
I’m sure Tony has been in here talking about people that shouldn’t be in the headlines but the thing I’m pleased about today is that even if we’d have lost that game the characteristics that we need to be a better team were on show.
It was always going to be a tight game and I thought we showed a lot of discipline and we did things today which we’ve not done for a while which is stay in tight games and you’ve always got a chance of winning. Whether we were unlucky or not is irrelevant, we had some good chances in the game and created some good situations as an away side.
I haven’t seen the penalty, whether it’s a penalty or not but obviously the referee was under a bit of flack at that point, whether that makes it a bit easier or difficult to give it, I don’t know. If Han-Noah (Massengo) pulled the shirt then it’s not a very intelligent thing to do.
Dan (Bentley) saved it and we stayed in the game, we won it because we stayed in it and we badly needed a win. Quite simple really.
A good goal to win it as well…
Yeah, the build-up was quite patient and we didn’t have many passages of play where we played with a lot of control into the final third but they were trying to win it so that opens them up a bit but we showed some composure and our wing-back scores.
You mentioned the collective mentality, the players left it all out there on the pitch…
They needed to because they haven’t always done that. We’ve been criticised and I have been critical so when I’m being critical I’m criticising myself and everybody. To make progress you’ve got to have that as a starting point and I think the players have felt a bit hurt with criticism when people ask questions if you’ve got the guts and the determination to see things through, it’s not a very nice thing to hear and they worked hard today.
It wasn’t our best performance but we’ve won so that’s football.
You said on Thursday that you would take a scrappy win…
I’ll take ugly wins and ugly draws, I don’t care but of course I’d prefer us to play well and win but what we’ve got to do is combine the art of defending collectively and playing well so we had to shuffle it around just to give us a bit more protection with a flat three.
That flat three worked and it stopped them playing in the middle…
Yeah, we knew what they were going to do, that is that they try to work it and hit diagonals, (Reda) Khadra on the left-hand side cutting in on his right is a danger and Gallagher makes great runs and he’s a big unit as well.
We knew they would ask questions of us but I thought we showed a bit of discipline even in the second half when we were tired. You’ve got players like Robbie Cundy who’s not started a game at this level before, and Rob Atkinson who’s coming back, there were some tired legs out there.
Matty James and Joe Williams showed a lot of experience today and we needed that. Chris Martin was great up top as well in terms of getting us up the pitch, a lot of people don’t recognise what he does for the team but he was great.
How did you assess Cundy's full debut? He's had to wait a while for it.
He looked tired at the end but he enjoys defending so he's my type of player.
And what about the performance of Dan Bentley today?
I prefer it if goalkeepers don't have a lot to do but what they do well. We don't want goalkeepers getting Man of the Match because they've made 10 saves, with crap defending. Dan didn't have loads to do what he did do today he did pretty well. The penalty save is a key moment in the game, especially with the timing of it as well.
We were under quite a lot of pressure at that point in the game but came through so, good.
Did Joe Williams mean that assist?!
No idea, ask him - ask him. It doesn't matter, it was a great finish.
Another performance where Andi never lets you down, it was a tireless showing at wing-back, rewarded with a goal.
That's the good thing about Andi, he'll play where you put him and he always fancies himself to get a good chance at some point. We have played against sides that have done work with keeping him quiet so I have a wry smile to myself today - if they had done a bit of work on that I don't know but he does a good job for the team and that's the most important thing.
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