Team Rebuild Taking Us In Right Direction
Last updated : 20 September 2010 By Covsupport News Service/RD
Coventry City manager Aidy Boothroyd hailed his team after their 2-1 away win at Ashton Gate on Saturday, the first away win since March and the fist win at Bristol City for 47 years.
Boothroyd now firmly believes all the hard work of rebuilding the team following the departure of Chris Coleman is beginning to pay off and they are becoming a good side.
He said to the CT: "Today we proved that we can be a very good team. We had a good, honest conversation after the Swansea defeat, and the players responded superbly."
"It's going to take a bit of time but we did a lot of things we've talked about and worked on. We were well worth the win and it's given the lads a little bit of evidence that what I've been saying isn't nonsense. I know Bristol haven't been having a great time this season but they've still got some quality players and this can be a very difficult place to get a result."
"You have to be able to defend, which we did, and when we were going forward I always thought we had a chance of scoring. We made really good decisions about when to go down the sides, when to play in between."
"Sometimes when you've got players like Clive Platt and Lukas Jutkiewicz in the team the temptation is to get it to the front as quickly as possible, but I thought we mixed it up very well.
"Aron Gunnarsson's contribution on the right-hand side was terrific - he gives us a lovely balance - and Carl Baker is a fox in the box with terrific tricks who is always liable to get free-kicks and penalties and score goals, but Sammy Clingan was the pick of the bunch today. I thought he was excellent."
"A lot of things just clicked, and when we look back at today's game at the end of the season I think we'll perhaps say that was the time we got on to a bit of a roll. This is a huge step forward for us."
Boothroyd thought some of the decisions went against his side and thought there were a couple of penalty appeals should have been awarded, not to mention the goal Bristol scored while Ben Turner was on floor with a bloody face.
"Ben had a head wound," he said. "Sometimes play gets stopped, sometimes it doesn't, but instead of looking to the referee we should have helped ourselves a bit better and made sure that they didn't get a cross in."
"There were too many crosses for my liking and John Stead had a terrific game for them, as honest and genuine as you'd expect from a lad from West Yorkshire, but Ben and Richard Wood were rocks at the centre of the defence and won the battle in the end."
"We had a couple of penalty appeals, I counted four, although I suppose I'm a little bit biased, but what I was pleased about was that we got on with it as we did after their equaliser. We could have sulked, but we had the character to bounce back."
"I was thrilled with the performance and really excited about what's to come, especially as Marlon is set to sign on Monday morning, thank goodness. I asked them the question after Tuesday night and they gave me the perfect answer - from 1 to 11 they stood up."
"Now we've got to build on that, because unless we do it's all a bit pointless, but I think we will. I think we'll get better and better."
