Fleetwood Town head coach Joey Barton spoke to the media following his sides 2-1 victory at home to Tranmere Rovers on Saturday.
A superb free-kick from Josh Morris and a composed second half strike from Paddy Madden made it seven home wins this season for the Cod Army.
Town held on to the points despite Tranmere grabbing a late consolation goal through Paul Mullin.
Barton gave Town’s 19-year-old goalkeeper Billy Crellin his first start in the EFL, which was capped off with the man of the match award, and the all important three points.
Below are the key points from Barton’s post-match interview…
On the game...
“It's three points are on the board again. It continues our excellent form at Highbury, and we have probably played miles better on occasions throughout my tenure here.
“Tranmere were a good worthy opponent today, and you have got to stand up and be counted. They are the games where you have got to grind out and find a way to win if you want to be successful.
“We have shown that there are many different ways to win a football game. We had to stand up and be counted especially in that backline. They went from back to front at every opportunity. You would expect them at some point to get the ball down and play.
“It was effective and it caused us problems, and we had to deal with it. I thought Ash Eastham and Harry Souttar were superb for us today. They dealt with the physical confrontation and that gave us a platform today to go into the game collect the three points.
“We like to get at teams, but they didn’t hang around with the ball long enough for us to be able to press them. Our back four had to stand up and win their physical duels and I thought that they did that on the whole and had to compete.”
On Crellin’s league debut…
“I thought he was superb, and I am disappointed for him that he didn’t get a clean sheet because I thought that his composure, control and maturity warranted that.
“He has shown the confidence that we have in him in selecting him as the first choice goalkeeper today over Alex Cairns, who is another really good keeper, so it was a tight call.
“Thankfully we got the win and it justified the selection.”
On the next fixtures…
“I am looking forward to it. We have won two on the spin in the cup, with two good victories, and they have obviously given us that momentum going into today, and we backed that up with a win.
“Now we go back into two more cup fixtures, so it would be nice to get out of this week with three wins. That would mean five consecutive wins, which would be a good indication of where our group is.
“We have some hard work to do on Tuesday night at Goodison, and I am sure it will be a fantastic occasion and one that I hope the boys really relish.”