Brownhill’s pride to captain City

The victory handed City their first three points and clean sheet of the Sky Bet Championship campaign.

The goals came courtesy of summer recruits Ádám Nagy and Benik Afobe who opened their accounts for the season with goals in either half.

And speaking after the full-time whistle, City’s on-field captain spoke of his delight for everyone.

“Everybody is buzzing, both are good players and all the players we have brought in have done well,” Brownhill said. “It’s nice for Benik and Nagy to get off the mark so early. When you don’t you can start thinking when the goal is going to come so for them two, I am very pleased.

“I think the boys did really well today and to get that win off the mark after our first three games is good but on a personal note, to be captain today was a special moment. Big thanks to the gaffer believing in me and it was a special moment.”

Brownhill explained how it was always his ambition to take on that level of responsibility and now at 23 years of age, he has achieved that.

He said: “I was aiming to be a leader, a captain somewhere in my career so for it come this early on is a very proud moment.” And he didn’t have long for the captaincy honour to sink, having only found about it in the hours before kick-off.

He added: “I was upstairs pre-match [when I found out] and the gaffer text me to go into his office. He told me there and it was good.”

Saturday’s win came off the back of a disappointing result in midweek, against Mark Warburton’s QPR who won 5-4 in the penalty shooutout.

But for Brownhill, that loss provided the added motivation to get the win this afternoon.

He said: “It was disappointing to lose on penalties, I felt we did enough to win the game but it’s a different game today and we got the first points with a clean sheet as well.

“There are new players coming in, integrating with everybody. They did really well and Noah (Massengo) came on and did really well on his Championship debut. We still have a lot to learn from each other but as each game goes on we will learn more.”

City’s next game comes against Philip Cocu’s Derby County on Tuesday night (August 20^th, 7.45pm KO).

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