Town Head Coach Luke Williams praised his players in the wake of their superb 2-1 victory away at Bolton Wanderers earlier today and addressed a number of topics with the local media…
ON THE RESULT AND PERFORMANCE:
“We kept calm after conceding and there was a storm to weather immediately after the goal, but the boys didn’t collapse and two moments of real quality got us in-front.
“It is almost like having a player inside the box with the ball at his feet when Ben (Gladwin) gets it from 20-yards and people don’t press him.
“He’s very, very accurate and he’s got real power so as soon as I saw the ball drop to him I felt that it was a great opportunity to score.
“It was becoming like a basketball match, there were a lot of heavy legs and it probably could have gone either way at that point.
“The longer the game went on the more likely we were to score.
“It was a huge win and I don’t think it is a coincidence that it has coincided with new players coming to the club and we’ve got excellent players already at the club, but sometimes the balance can be off in the team and we’ve got Ben Gladwin now who we know can be a match-winner and can do things that nobody else in the squad can do.
“I hope new players coming into the squad will rejuvenate everyone and I hope this is the example of what we’re going to see more often – only time will tell but I’m hoping that’s the case as much as every Swindon fan.”
ON CHARLIE COLKETT’S IMPRESSIVE DEBUT:
“We don’t know too much about Charlie at the moment but he showed some things with a left foot that I’ve not seen in quite a while at League One level.
“I’m sure there are a lot of things for him to work on in his game but he provided a wonderful ball in the box and Yaser (Kasim) scored a goal that moments earlier he had missed an earlier chance and he really made up for that.”
ON FANKATY DABO’S AND ISLAM FERUZ’S TOWN BOWS:
minute and that level of athleticism is quite unusual. He’s so quick and he can get forward and not leave himself exposed and he can make a recovery run – it was almost like he was doing two jobs.th“Fankaty travelled up the pitch 50 or 60 yards with the ball in the 95
“I don’t think he was overly fazed by playing in a beautiful stadium and against a team who were in really good form.
“He brought us real athleticism and he brought us some real calmness and quality on that side of the pitch.
“I think Islam will benefit a lot from some fitness and some exposure to League One football but he certainly gave everything he possibly could and there were moments where he looked a real threat.
“We’re looking forward to seeing more of that.”
ON RAPHAEL ROSSI-BRANCO’S BATTLE WITH GARY MADINE:
“Rapha has covered himself in glory with that performance against what I would say is the most difficult player to play against in the air. The aerial threat from that guy is unrivalled and Rapha dealt with that so well.
“He defended the box incredibly, he started off us playing at the back, stepped in at the right moment with the ball and he’s in top form – he’s probably one of the most difficult centre-backs to play against.”
ON LUKE NORRIS’ PERFORMANCE:
“You look at the goals and Lawrence Vigouroux making important saves and you look at the centre-backs, but Luke has worked so hard to get us up the pitch, he’s taken the knocks from the big guys at the back, he’s run to shut down full-backs and he really gave everything.
“He deserved to be on the winning team today.”
ON BEING WITHOUT JON OBIKA AND BRAD BARRY:
“They are both nursing injuries unfortunately.
“Bradley’s ankle still has too much fluid on it and we need to get the fluid off before we can really start to make sure he is strong enough.
“Jon Obika seems to be incredibly finely-tuned at the moment and any sort of overstretch or any sort of awkward contact he seems to be picking up and he picked something up in training that we don’t think is too serious, but we don’t want to take a risk of losing him for a long period.
“It is something in the hamstring but he’s sensibly gone to get that treated.”
