The Inside Line: Post-Blackburn Rovers (A)

Digging in
“I’d put the result down to desire. We showed against a very good side with a fantastic home record that we could do both parts of the game today. In the first half we were very slick on the counter from that middle third but lacked a bit of quality in the final third and I think in the second half we dug in. It was always going to be a tough game. I said beforehand that defences would be important because of both teams’ attacking threat and I think that showed but we were lucky enough to earn the right to score the winner from the set-piece.”

The defence
“We were going to come here and defend and put our bodies on the line. Adam Webster and Thomas Kalas are top centre-backs and we are delighted to have them. Webster has got better and better and Kalas is well proven for the level and I think he is enjoying his football. Those two are a formidable partnership but the strength we have this year is that we have depth and have got a whole back four we could replace today’s with. To have Nathan Baker, Bailey Wright, Jack Hunt and Lloyd Kelly as well as the goalkeeper is a really good position to be in.”

Avoiding the manager of the month award (awarded to Tony Mowbray)
“I never thought I’d celebrate not getting manager of the month! As Tony (Mowbray) will have told you it is a staff and club award because no manager does it on his own. Tony has done a fantastic job at this club. It’s a great win for us because it gets Blackburn away from us a little bit. They have to win two or three games more than us and we have a game in hand.”

Improvements
“We have just got to keep churning out performances. There are still areas of our game that we can work on. What I am really enjoying at the moment is the players transferring the hard work on the training ground and that flourishing in games. I’ve just said to the players that every one of them is so important. We brought a squad of 21 so four didn’t even make the squad today and two players injured and as long as those injury levels stay strong that creates competition.”