United’s early season from has brought smiles to the faces of the Blue Army who, for the most part, have had to watch from afar as their team has combined hard work with good football on their way to picking up a run of impressive results.
“It’s great that the fans are excited – at least somebody can relax and enjoy and smile!” manager Chris Beech joked. “I just have to make sure we keep doing what we’re doing in our environment. That’s all I can do, that’s my job.
“It’s really good and I’m so glad we can share it with them, of course I am. If they’d been behind the goal at Bradford there would have been some real scenes because of the way the lads won the game.
“I’m glad they’re happy, players are happy, I’m happy, but we’ve got to keep it going.”
Speaking more about the game, he told us: “You take three points and a clean sheet anywhere, home or away, but I’m thankful that we gained it, because we deserved it.
“Sometimes you don’t get it when that’s the case, as we’ve seen already this season. We have to have different elements of how we’re going to win games because every 90 minutes is a different challenge.
“Teams have different systems, styles, whatever, you get so many challenges from different opponents. That’s why we’re pleased with a clean sheet. To keep one and maximise three points is good news for us.
“I’d have preferred it to have been more comfortable but it’s very commendable for our players to have seen it through when Bradford were throwing everything at them. Making better decisions in the second half enabled us to do what we needed to do better, but we still need more.
“Bradford are near the bottom of the table but they didn’t play like they’re down there at all. I warned the lads at half time that they would have a motivated team coming at them so we were going to have to step up. The boys listened and we got the win, which is good. We ended up creating chances and if the goalkeeper had had an off day it could have been better for us.
“You have to respect every opponent you play against and Bradford reminded us of that because they went for it. They’re a club that’s building and I thought their players were fully committed. They’ll be fine if they carry on like that.”
On the way his team are starting to dominate games, he said: “I keep saying we’re a very young team and we have players who haven’t completed a full season of football yet.
“There’s a lot going on in terms of players getting this level of experience and we’re a group that’s constantly growing into that. This is a game where we have to look at why we won, why we put it at risk, and why we managed to see it through, so it’s a great learning curve for us.
“Players are stepping up, but that’s what a squad is for. You only get this from a good culture and environment and we’re managing to create that. We looked closely at the players we wanted to bring in and I think that was important.
“The older players we’ve brought in aren’t selfish, they’re helping others to grow, and it’s working well for everybody. The pleasing thing is that we had to roll our sleeves up on Saturday and we showed we could do that.”
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