Head coach Scott Brown spoke to the press after his side performed valiantly against high-flying Championship side Burnley in the fifth round of the Emirates FA Cup.
It was a showing from the players that anyone associated with Fleetwood Town would be proud of as they limited a free-scoring side in Burnley, who have netted 68 goals in 34 games in the league above, to just one goal, which came in the 90th minute.
On the performance…
“It’s an absolutely unbelievable performance by the lads; it’s hard coming here, especially when you get a man sent off, but these things happen. They’ve got a great game plan, and good players as well. You can see why they are top of the Championship.
“The lads defended well, putting the bodies on the line. I thought Lynchy [Jay Lynch] was exceptional yet again. Our distribution when we did have the ball, we tried to play but the press is extremely good.
“They’re going to have a lot of the ball, but we tried to cash in on the counter-attack but except that I thought the first half we coped well.”
On being proud…
“To get this far and to take them to the 90th minute, was exceptional from the lads. This is a hard place to come to, especially with 10 men. For us to defend as well as we did and work as hard as we did, for 45 minutes with 10 men: I’m extremely proud of these lads.
“It’s not about me, it’s about them and how well they’ve done - their willingness and desire to go all the way. I don’t know if we’d have managed another 30 minutes if it’d had gone to extra time, but no it’s a fantastic performance.
“It shows you what they can do. We’ve come to a top championship side, they understood the gameplan. You can’t be any prouder of the lads to come here and play as we did.”
On the confidence gained from the performance…
“It’s got to be a confidence builder knowing they can defend that way; we just need to learn to make sure we do it for 95 minutes.
“The work rate of the lads, the understanding of the shape, when we knew, we weren’t going to have much of the ball. The chances they created were more from 10-15 yards out.
“Our fans were the only ones I heard for 90 minutes, from start to finish. It sounded like we had 20,000 here - their support is great for us, it spurs the lads on.
“It gives them the confidence and even at the end, they were still singing and dancing and it shows you the love the lads have got for the fans going straight over to them.”