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First Team News

Gaffer Pleased By Attitude Of His Players

13 August 2019

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First Team News

Gaffer Pleased By Attitude Of His Players

13 August 2019

Manager Alex Neil was delighted with the attitude of his squad as they secured a place in the second round of the Carabao Cup.

The gaffer asked his players to give him a selection headache ahead of the next game and they certainly did that with a superb performance and a 4-0 victory.

Speaking to iFollow PNE after the game, Alex said: "I thought it was important that we gave the other players an opportunity to show what they can do. We spoke a lot before the game about making sure they put a really good performance in and making my job for the weekend as difficult as possible.

"I don't really think they could have done much more, they were excellent to a man. It's really tough at the moment to pick a squad, but they are the headaches you need. All the lads can do is go and perform very well and win the game and they did that."

"When you've got good players and you leave them out, they are naturally frustrated and disappointed but what they always do is they react. I thought all of the lads did that tonight and I think they all thought 'well, this is what I can do, I've got plenty to offer this club and plenty to offer you going forward' so I was delighted with every one of them."

On the attitude of his side throughout the game, he continued: "Attitude is key, if you come here and you're attitude isn't quite right and you think you're just going to roll up because you are in a higher division, that's the wrong way to go about it.

"I think if your quality on the night is not right as well that can be a problem, and if you're sloppy, and I didn't think for most of the game that we were any of those three at all.

"I thought our attitude was excellent, our quality was very good in terms of being patient and moving the ball and when we got our chances we were clinical."

The tie saw full debuts for Tom Bayliss and Andre Green, with the latter opening his account for the season with the first goal of the night, and the manager was happy to see the on-loan Aston Villa man get off the mark.

"I think the first goal is always important because when you get that first one, Bradford needed to change tack slightly and come out and attack a bit more to get back in to the game and that leaves a lot of spaces for us after that and I think that's how the game panned out.

"It was nice to see a wide player getting inside his full back, it's something we talk about regularly. Callum used to do it really well, Tommy B [Barkhuizen] does it really well and so it's nice to see Andre getting in there and getting his goal, it was very good."

Watch the full interview with the gaffer on iFollow PNE by clicking on the video above. 


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