Abbott reaction to the 3-1 win
United manager Greg Abbott spoke to us about the 3-1 victory at Yeovil shortly after full time on Saturday.
“This was an important victory for us, that goes without saying,” he said. “It’s been a tough week for us with some of the things that have been said outside the club and it was important for us that we stayed in focus.
“We want to win football games and we have to give a massive pat on the back to our players. They have worked extremely hard in difficult conditions and they’ve put in a good performance for us. They could have hidden away and waited or hoped for things to happen for them. They didn’t do that and they showed us again that they’re a determined group and that they are a good side.
“We know we can do this. Unfortunately our best performances have come away from home and that’s something we know we have to get right. People will judge us on what they see and we have put on some horrible performances at home. We’re better than that and hopefully we’ll push on from here.
“We’ve seen some big individual performances today and that was important. Defensively we were much more solid and we’re very pleased about that. Both keepers have been busy and that’s always the case when the grass is wet and the rain is coming down like that. Adam [Collin] has been brave and he’s come for things, made his blocks and made his saves.
“The young players are a huge bonus for us. We’ve told Mark Beck to look at how Joe Garner does thing and he put himself about and made himself a nuisance. He also got his first league goals and that will be something which should give him a huge boost. Dave Symington has that level of unpredictability about him and he had another where he did some good things. Brad Potts was immense in midfield for us and he put in an unbelievable shift. It’s looking good but they all know they still have work to do. With these lads and with the players coming back from injury we think we’re going to have a nice little unit.
“Confidence did take a knock, we can’t get away from that, but that always happens when results go against you. What we never lost, though, was that determination and belief to put it right. Like I say, this is a good dressing room and they don’t like getting beat. It has hurt them and they have come out fighting to get back to where they want to be.
“We needed the win and now we want to build on it. Next week is a huge game because it is in front of our fans. We will have a better week in terms of how everything feels because we have this win under our belt. Now we want to build on that and take it into a tough game against a strong Bournemouth side. Momentum is the key now and we have to hope that this is the start of a better run for us.
“I told the players before kick off that it wasn’t going to be pretty. I thought we dealt with everything much better than Yeovil did today and we took our chances really well when they came along. Our strikers got them for us and I think the run Joe [Garner] is on shows why we wanted to keep him here. Danny Livesey and Mike Edwards were fantastic and they got some really good cover from the midfield four. Overall it was a much better team performance and they will all benefit from that.
“We now have next week to dust ourselves down after what has been another very busy period and we can get ourselves ready for the cup game, which we obviously want to win.”
