Following United’s hardworking 1-0 win at Brackley Town, we spoke to Mark Hughes.
Speaking to CUTV, he said: “[It's] really important to bounce back really quickly.
“We were disappointed, obviously, with the previous game, but tonight I thought we were really good in terms of understanding what we needed to do.
“I thought our patience was good when we got on the ball, we were selective in when we went forward and when we were recognised when we couldn't, and we were at risk of losing the ball, and I thought we moved them around.
“I thought we had good rotation in wider areas. I think they were trying to push their wingbacks high initially, and it caused us a little bit of a problem, but we worked that out very, very quickly, and then we were able to force them back and play the majority of the game in their half.
“Obviously, towards the end, they're going to smack balls into your box, and you have to defend, and they're just hoping for percentages then, but it would have been a travesty if we hadn't won the game.”
The Blues had to be patient to get on the scoresheet with Regan Linney finding the net in the 79th minute: “I think that's a good sign for us, we're going to be involved in lots of different games in terms of, some games will be stop-starts, some games will be more possession-based, other times they'll just be kick and rush and you have to deal with the challenge.
“I thought we had the elements of all those things today, so yeah, I'm pleased with the performance, the results obviously, we're in good shape at the moment, good return for the six, seven games that we've had so far, it gives us a good platform.”
United returned to winning ways after a defeat to Sutton United last time out.
“Really important, we needed just to recognise where we could have done better, we just made a couple of mistakes, set pieces have been our strength, I think that was the first time for a long, long time that we'd conceded out of a set play.
“Then just individual errors which can happen any time, so that was the story of that game. In terms of the game itself, we thought we'd done enough to get something out of the game.
“I think a draw probably would have been a fairer result, but tonight I've never felt really in too much danger, I don't think they really got any momentum apart from that opening period, and we dealt with that.”
On the goal, which saw Jack Ellis find Linney with a precise pass before the Blues' number ten fired into the bottom left corner.
“He's (Linney) trying all night just to get that little yard of space that we know he's lethal in those situations, if he can just get his shots off, he's always accurate, he's always correct in terms of the strike he gets on and it's really difficult for keepers to really deal with that if he gets the right strike on the ball.”
On the importance of winning tight games away from home, he said: “I think you've just got to respect what we're up against.
“We've had a lot of travelling, and the way games that we've had have been difficult, Woking, Wealdstone, tonight again, I think we've had seven games, we've got four clean sheets, so we're not doing a great deal, so we're in good shape.
“We're getting better as the season progresses, we've still got guys that obviously just bedding in, and I thought Alex Gilliead came in to really good effect today.
“I thought he was excellent and was showing what he can do. I had to take him off because he was just tiring because he hadn't had a great deal of football in recent weeks, but all in all, really pleasing results and performance.”
The Blues return to Brunton Park to take on Truro City on Saturday, he said: “Back-to-back results are really important for us, I mean we've done a lot of hard work here, so it sets up the home game nicely for us and let's hope we can go again and get something like the level of performance we had against Braintree.”
425 fans made the trip to Northamptonshire, another outstanding effort.
“Brilliant, brilliant, thankfully we were able to give them the result their efforts deserved, so yeah, everybody's really pleased at the end.”
On the signing of midfielder Alex Gilliead, he said: “Well, he's got great experience, listen, I really enjoyed working with Gilly at Bradford, he was excellent for me, and initially he was always on my radar
“Initially the deal was going to be a little bit out of our reach so we had to be a little bit patient but it came back around, that happens sometimes when parent clubs don't get the deal that they think they are going to get and all of a sudden he became available on loan and we jumped at that because it made sense to us.”
And on injuries, he said: “No, I've been here busy, we'll see how they are, there are a couple of things, we've been a little bit careful with a couple of them, but when everybody's back, then we're going to be really strong.”
