Head coach Scott Brown spoke to local press after his side’s 1-1 draw with Port Vale at Highbury on Saturday afternoon.
The second-half performance for the players will be something the gaffer will take great pride in after they managed to come back from behind and even chase the three points with constant chances coming in until the final whistle.
Here’s what the gaffer had to say after the game:
On the performance…
“It’s difficult for the lads to go Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday Tuesday but I thought they worked extremely hard. They lost a little bit of energy, but I tell you what they work hard, and they kept going till the 96th minute - getting the goal at the end was pleasing.
“We’ve got to swap and change formations as well, so in the next couple of weeks, we can start to work on the shape and the press. I didn’t think we troubled them enough until the second half. We didn’t play as well as we could have but I am proud of how hard the team worked.
“The lads showed great spirit and the thing is here sometimes it’s been bad with the conditions; you can see the wind but come second half we had the wind working for us. We had to make a couple of changes to freshen it up a bit and I think overall that helped give us a little bit of a boost.”
On Jack Marriott…
“I’m delighted for him [Jack Marriott]; he could’ve had two almost there. He’s a goal scorer who wants to score goals and you can see in his game that it’s obviously been frustrating him, but it’ll be a weight off his shoulder and hopefully, he just kicks on from there.
“He’s done extremely well since coming in and as I say has become a huge turning point. Jack works his socks off for us and to play as a lone striker sometimes that’s what you’ve got to do, even playing in a two.
“If you can’t run in this day and age, it’s very hard to play football, you need to bring something to the part. For me Jack runs in behind he comes short and he’s getting better at his link-up play as well and now I’m just delighted he’s got off the mark.”
On the tough schedule…
“The lads were tired, and cramping up but now it’s time for them to relax a bit and chill as we go just Saturdays for the next few weeks, which is ideal for us. It’s disappointing the way we played, but at the end of the day after that six-week period, we are in a miles better position.
“It’s hard because the lads that have come in, don’t really know what we’ve been working on. So, for the lads to come in and be thrown in at the deep end, it’s hard for them. It’s been hard for all the lads to get that understanding but today was more about the way we wanted to play.”