Ryan Lowe praised the defensive aspect of his Preston North End side’s performance in the 1-0 victory away to Sheffield Wednesday.
After a relatively even opening 45 minutes, Liam Lindsay headed home in the early stages of the second half to put his side in front.
North End had to deal with an aerial bombardment in the latter stages of the match at Hillsborough, with the hosts sending a number of long throw-ins and crosses into the box, but the visitors wearing red held on to the clean sheet and victory.
Ryan said: “I’m buzzing for the lads. I thought they were fantastic from start to finish.
“The gameplan went right to fruition. I thought we had to do lots of defending in terms of their long throws coming in the box and our lads were fantastic.
“I said to them to enjoy them moments; enjoy defending and being good at what you are.
“They’re good defenders, solid and resolute, and I thought we managed the game fantastically well.
“[We’re happy] to score from a set play. Peter [Murphy] has been working with the lads on them and we’re wanting Liam Lindsay or Hughesy [Andrew Hughes] or Jordan [Storey] to get their head on it.
“It’s about time Liam got his head on it so I’d have liked him to have celebrated a little bit more.
“I think the lads jumped all over him but it’s a fantastic delivery and a fantastic header.”
That delivery came from the left foot of Kian Best, making only his third appearance in the Championship.
He’s been playing in the absence of Robbie Brady and it was a brilliantly-whipped ball at Hillsborough from near the left touchline into a dangerous area and Lindsay connected with it to find the bottom corner.
Ryan said: “When you miss someone like Robbie’s quality you need another bit of quality.
“Browney’s obviously got that quality and Mads [Frøkjær] has got that quality, but from that left-hand side what we wanted to do was make sure we utilise it because when he’s putting balls in good areas you’ve got to go and get your head on it.
“I call them chilli dipper balls. They’re fantastic balls and they’re fantastic quality what you want in the box and the more we keep doing that the more goals we’ll score.”
The victory over the Owls made it seven points from a possible nine at the beginning of the Sky Bet Championship season.
Next up for North End is a home match against Swansea City and, while PNE will go into it feeling confident, Ryan is keeping his feet on the ground.
“We can’t get too carried away,” he said. “It’s a tough league, isn’t it?
“We’ve had a fantastic start and that’s what we wanted. I’ve got a points tally which I haven’t told the players of what we’d like to get before the international break.
“Then we’ll start getting a few players back because the squad’s bare at the moment in terms of the bench. We’ve got a lot of youngsters on there and congratulations to Noah [Mawene] coming on today.”