Michael Appleton was full of praise for his players after their hard-fought 3-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday.
Michael Appleton was full of praise for his players after their hard-fought 3-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday.
The boss felt strikers Tom Hopper and John Marquis set the tone from the outset and the rest then followed suit while showing quality at the right times.
He said: “I’m really pleased with the aggression that we showed all over the park. I thought we were excellent out of possession and we had that little bit of quality at times when we needed it.
“I thought we were massively on the front foot in the second half. The two strikers set the tone for the whole game and even when we were 2-1 up it wasn’t a fact of sitting back, we were on them and we were at it, there was a little bit of quality and calmness when needed.”
The LNER Stadium was packed out with a crowd of more than 10,000, which Appleton felt gave the players a boost.
The gaffer was pleased with his team’s reaction from last weekend's loss to Gillingham, but insisted he does not want them to get carried away.
He added: “It was a proper game of football. Both sets of supporters were really at it and I thought we needed that type of game. We needed an almost hostile atmosphere type game to hit back and react from last weekend’s performance.
“We’ve got two long trips coming up so we’re going to be on the road quite a bit this week. I want the players to enjoy this for about an hour but I don’t want anyone talking about this game beyond 6pm. If they show me the actions that they showed me on the pitch I’ll be happy.”
