Town Head Coach Luke Williams was full of praise for his side when speaking to the media in the wake of the Reds’ 1-1 draw away at Southend United earlier this evening…
ON THE RESULT AND PERFORMANCE:
“It proved that there is a fighting spirit in there and I thought they really had to weather a storm against a team that have got a lot of threats, so that was really encouraging.
“It was a very tough first-half. They’ve got real threats going forward and we know all about Nile Ranger and how talented he is, so it was very difficult to keep them out entirely.
“It was very concerning when we went 1-0 down early because this team have shown sometimes that they struggle to respond, but that wasn’t the case and I thought they steadied themselves and played themselves back in the game.
“The players realised that Southend could be got at and that they could afford to attack with more players and be a little bit braver and that’s what they did.
“It was all about heart and character and it was all about how prepared you are to run with your opponent and how prepared you are to put your body on the line and risk taking a knock.
“It is entirely down to willingness.
“It would have been nicer and more comfortable if we were able to keep the ball, but if you can’t be good on the ball you need to be good without it and we were that in the second-half tonight.
“They need to build upon that now and make sure that type of desire is ever-present in every single performance, but only time will tell.”
ON JON OBIKA’S GOAL:
“Lawrence Vigouroux made two passes before the goal, he played one way and then the other and he drew a five-man press and then had the presence of mind to play between them, so it was very impressive.
“His all-round game is fantastic. He can bring the ball down and bring people in to play, he can run behind the line and of course he’s got a cool head in front of goal and can take a chance.”
ON LAWRENCE VIGOUROUX’S HEROICS:
“Just incredible. He’s really the architect of our goal and he’s the main reason why we’ve managed to take a point tonight because he’s stopped everything that was thrown at him.
“It was a tremendous performance, out of the ordinary really and he’s shown that he’s capable of that a number of times.
“Coming off the back of a heavy defeat he really seemed to take it upon himself to make sure that we secured at least a point.”
ON NOT HAVING THE SERVICES OF MICHAEL DOUGHTY OR BRAD BARRY:
“Both of them are nursing small injuries that ruled them out for tonight but we’ll assess them and see if they’ve got a chance of being available for the next fixture.”
ON YASER KASIM’S INJURY:
“We knew that he wouldn’t be involved after an assessment earlier in the week so we didn’t even attempt to put him in the squad tonight.”
