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Manager's Assessment - Stocksbridge Park Steels

Manager's Assessment - Stocksbridge Park Steels

Nigel Oldrini5 Apr - 17:01

'Excellent performance start to finish.'

Yes (I’m delighted with the performance), a bit of a weight off the shoulders for myself, for the lads, because we've been dying for that win, haven't we, for weeks now.

Excellent performance start to finish. Scored at good times, some real standout individual performances, but the collective was really good. We managed the game well when we got in front, took our chances.

I think in the end they've had two good chances as well, but I think we probably could have scored five or six today.

We don't get carried away with that, because we had plenty of disappointments this year, and football has a habit of kicking you when you're down. But you hit the nail on the head there. It feels doom and gloom a bit with all the draws we've had, but we are unbeaten in a long time.

We haven't conceded many recently. We conceded four goals in the last seven games before today. That's four in eight, and at this level, where usually it's goals galore, that's pretty good.

But at the same time, we looked a little bit blunt at the other end of the pitch. I don't think we did today. I've been waiting for that performance from Bastos for about six weeks.

We left him out last week, and he'd never (have) done that last year. But we just felt we needed to freshen it up. He's come back this week, trained really well, and I just thought they couldn't handle him.

Andrew on the other side, very similar. Look, we knew they played narrow in midfield, so we just thought we'd gamble today and go with really high and wide wingers, just basically to offset their game plan a little bit and go punch for punch with them.

We've set up all week, and we’ve been planning all week, like we do always, but extra prep for this one just because they played a strange shape with a 10 playing left-hand side but tucked in to make a second striker.

Lee Attenborough was talking to Chris Nelson

We just felt we could, but all week, we thought, do we pack the midfield? Do we try and win the seconds? Do we keep it tight and just try and nip 1-0? And in the end, I thought, you know what, we'll go for it.

And luckily for us, it's paid off today. But the lads have carried the game plan out to an absolute T.

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