With the manager having looked towards experience for his first game in charge, he also spared a thought for some of the younger members of the group who played their part, particularly when it came to getting the all-important clean sheet.
“You’ve got Morgan [Feeney] with 21 league appearances and Dynel [Simeu] with six, so I spoke to them on Wednesday about what a fantastic learning experience this is going to be if they come out of the other side with a positive,” he explained.
“They won’t come up against many battles like that and I’m sure Dynel, when he was with Chelsea and Southampton, and Morgan with Everton, they didn’t face that in Premier League 2.
“They’ll learn, grow and improve and what I want them to do with this game is enjoy it, get their feet back on the ground, and in all fairness to them, as they’ve just said in the dressing room, let’s get it right on Tuesday, because that’s what matters next.”
“At the end, of course, we had Tobi [Sho-Silva] clearing off the line, and that’s another thing done for the team,” he added. “In all fairness, it was Gav who said to me, what about sticking Tobi on, they’re loading it up with big lads, and I know it sounds negative but he’ll do a job at set plays.
“Fair play, he did the job at set play for us. At the other end we had experienced platers involved in our goal, and that’s what experience does because they know how to deal with that situation.
“They’ve been in that situation before. I love seeing young players come through but there’s so much value in having some older heads in the team, some experience, and I think that showed.”
