That’s more like it, Brewers! Jonny is Hull of a hero
BOSS: A LOT OF DRESSING ROOM SMILES AFTER THAT
JIMMY Floyd Hasselbaink felt a point would have been a job well done by Burton Albion against League One high-flyers Hull City – but that his team deserved to score and win the game.
That they did, in the 90th minute, to make it two wins from three and two clean sheets in Hasselbaink’s first three matches back in charge.
The manager retained six of the starters from the last match, three weeks ago, although one of them was his first signing, Hayden Carter, and all nine of his January arrivals were in the match-day squad.
Hasselbaink was an animated, loud presence on the touchline as he urged his team to put their new ideas in to practice but he was beginning to think the game would end goalless.
“When you’re sitting down with five minutes to go, you are thinking, if we get a point out of the game, we will have done well, given everything,” said Hasselbaink.
“But we had actually been the better team and I thought we deserved a goal. I was thinking, what will I say to them after the game, because they deserved a goal?
“We were the team that deserved the three points and we didn’t give a chance away. Our goalkeeper had no saves to make.
“Yes, they hit the bar but that was a shot from outside the box.
“I don’t want shots on my goal but when you look at the game overall, we were magnificent and now the players are very happy and deservedly so. There are a lot of smiles in the dressing room right now.”
As we came to expect with Hasselbaink’s teams the last time he was at Burton, work-rate is the principle demand and his new-look team certainly had it in bucket-loads as they harrassed Hull at every turn.
“They worked extremely hard,” said Hasselbaink.
“The hard work is the minimum and if we keep on doing that we will get better with passing the ball and all the other stuff.
“We will improve but we have to keep on doing the work when we don’t have the ball, be aggressive in the right way.
“You tackle, make it hard for the opposition to pass the ball, then you give yourself the chance to win the game.
“It was always a worry bringing so many players in but they did really well, they stuck together and looked like a team.
“Even when we were without the ball, we looked solid and when we had it, we tried to pass.
“Certain things went wrong but we reacted well when they did.”
The goal, when it came, was a delight, with Josh Parker’s chipped pass picking out Jonny Smith’s run on the right and the debutant winger taking the ball in his stride and holding off full-back Callum Elder before slotting in his shot.
Hasselbaink praised Smith and was also pleased for the provider of the chance, who had earlier missed a great chance to break the deadlock when he screwed a shot wide from inside the six-yard box.
“Jonny took it really well,” said Hasselbaink.
“We had the biggest chance of the game before that with Josh Parker when he missed but we didn’t dwell on it and we kept on going.
“We found that chance going into the space and I must say Jonny took it very well.
“Jonny is one of those direct players who we need, who can pass a player and create a chance. He was very positive when he came on and put the defenders on the back foot.”
While there were good performances all over the pitch, especially from the new players, Hasselbaink singled out one of the players he inherited, Ryan Edwards, for particular praise.
The Australian midfielder adapted well to a deeper role, in front of the back four, although a 26th-minute booking put him on a tightrope and he came close to a second yellow card before being substituted.
“Our best man of the day was Ryan Edwards for the amount of work that he did,” said Hasselbaink.
“I would never have substituted him if he had not had a yellow card. The opposition bench were screaming for him to get another yellow card. We couldn’t afford that and it’s why I had to take him off.”