Assistant head coach Steven Whittaker spoke to the press after Fleetwood Town’s 1-0 win over Peterborough United at Highbury Stadium on Tuesday evening.
Promise Omochere nodded home Phoenix Patterson’s sublime cross in the first half to give Town the lead. After withstanding pressure from the Posh in the second half, Scott Brown’s side held out for all three points.
Here’s what Whittaker had to say:
On the game…
“It’s brilliant; we asked the players to go again, it’s a tough schedule. We probably didn’t play as well as we probably wanted to play within the game but it’s good that the players still found a way to take the points so that’s the most pleasing thing from tonight.
“I just felt like we weren’t as sharp to the second balls as them, they were reacting better which allows them to control the game and then we weren’t really pressing with any change of tempo so that was our issue. That made us get a little deeper than we would’ve liked.
“We tried to address it at half time, and we get a little bit better but as the game wore on the natural thing is to drop off and try and protect what you had so we made changes to try and help the players along with that.
“We put Toto Nsiala on to help with that and hopefully that did, and it just gave us a few more numbers behind the ball and we tried to hit them on the counter-attack which we did on occasions but we would’ve liked a little bit more of an attacking threat on the night, but we’re delighted to get all three points.”
On Omochere and Patterson’s recent performances…
“They’re both [Phoenix Patterson and Promise Omochere] performing really well. They’ve got great attributes that we can put in the wide areas, Promise can play up front as well. But we know Phoenix is quality.
“He showed that in the League of Ireland with the amount of goals and assists he had so he’s starting to bring that to our team which is great.
“We had to work defensively on both of them as and how we want to press and work off the ball, but again, they’re both young, willing to learn and do the work on the training ground and as a coach, that’s the kind of player you want to work with.”
On three consecutive wins…
“It’s the first time I think we’ve had three on the bounce, so I think that’s a little bump that we’ve overcome so that’s good, it’s good momentum.
“The turning point was a cup game so a bit of confidence from that, getting into the next round was good, and we’ve carried that into the league form which is what we asked of the players and they’ve managed to continue that on.
“We’ve got tough opponents at the weekend, Plymouth away. We managed to beat them here really early in the season so we’ll go there with nothing to lose and hopefully put on a good performance.”