Midfielder played second 90 minutes in a week
Jeff Hughes made his first league start at Highbury since January as Town dominated in a 1-0 win over Gillingham.The Northern Irishman played the full 90 minutes against Preston North End last weekend and kept his place in the starting XI to complete a second game in succession.
Speaking to the Club’s media team after the game Hughes expressed his delight to be back playing: “I enjoyed it. Obviously when you win it is enjoyable, you never had a bad game when you’re winning but I suppose at the end it just shows I am still getting up to speed.”
He continued: “When you are back it takes a while to get through. These 90 minutes are the best thing I can do and hopefully I’ll get up to speed really soon.
“If I thought I was, in any way, letting the fans down I would say but I think I held my own and I’m really happy the gaffer asked me back in the team.”
On the game itself, the 29-year-old admitted though it was not the Cod Army’s best performance at Highbury this season, but the most important thing was winning.
“It is probably one of the worst we have played at home but I think it’s something we have picked up from last year, learning to win ugly. We really needed three points today.
“If anyone has watched us, we have played a lot better than that and got beat, but I suppose if you played that bad and win it is a good sign.”
“We must have had three or four clear chances where we should have done better. So, playing badly and feeling like we should have won by more is a good sign.”
The midfielder also praised debutant Tom Hitchcock who grabbed the game’s only goal after three minutes: “The size of him too, his hold up play is good. They had three centre halves on today and at the end he was by himself and I thought he did really, really well.”
Focus now switches to the FA Cup with Town travelling to Cambridge for the first round with Hughes hoping the Cod Army can string together a cup run:
“It would be nice to try and go on a run in the cup so we look forward to it. It is a different experience, a team out of our league.”