We caught up with the gaffer following our 1-0 victory over Barrow.
He began by saying: "I'm delighted with the win. I'm really pleased with the attitude, the work ethic, all of that sort of stuff.
“I don't think it was a great footballing performance. We've had to dig in and we've had to ride it a little bit. The level of football wasn't as good as was shown in the other two games, but today was more about finding a way to win.
“You know, a local derby, we're on the back of two defeats, on the back of a relegation. You sometimes have to just grind it out. We've done that today, but you know what, it's still the same three points.
“It doesn't make any difference and credits the players for rolling the sleeves up and earning that win.”
The players really dug in today, and gave their all to secure the 3 points, even when we were under pressure towards the end. Paul spoke on that togetherness: "You look at that one at the end where Aaron Hayden puts his face in the way of that cross and knocks him clean out, but luckily it hit him flush in the face and he's able to carry on with it.
“But yeah, we did, we protected him (Harry Lewis), but he also did his job as well. He came and took some crosses and dealt with things and took pressure off. I just thought it was a full performance in terms of the working and the desire to earn that clean sheet and to earn that victory and hopefully it's the first of many.”
Barrow had a late equaliser disallowed, but aside from that, it’s hard to remember any openings for them. Paul spoke about that late decision: “Yeah, it was a little bit of a scare and people might say we had a bit of luck, but the truth is it wasn't luck, it was the correct decision from the assistant because the lad was offside, but we earned that because of the way that we squeezed out.
“We defended the first ball and it went out to, I think it was Kouyate on the edge of the box and he put it straight back in, but the line was, I was going to say it was good, but it wasn't brilliant, but it's something that we've talked about, we've worked on, that when it goes we have to squeeze as a group and if we hadn't have done that then we're defending that second ball. So we earned it because they pressed as we wanted them to.”
Our goal was scored by Dan Adu-Adjei, who picked up the MOTM reward. Paul gave us his thoughts on his performance: “He did a lot of good things, especially in first half.
“I'm delighted for him. His record in development football is outstanding for getting goals and he's earned that today. He was up against two experienced centre-backs in Vassell and Canavan, but I thought he showed real composure.
“It was a tough one because he'd had a free-kick given against him earlier, but this time he waited. It wasn't a foul, they were complaining it was, but Vassell just got his legs caught and tripped himself up, but he showed real calmness. He saw a little opening because I think the goalkeeper was probably edging, thinking it was going to be crossed to Charlie and I'll be honest, I thought it was going to be crossed to Charlie, but what a wonderful feeling to see that nestling in the back of the net and hearing everybody celebrate.”
Looking across the team, there was a lot of positive performances. We said that to Paul, he responded by saying:
“I think it was more about the work ethic today as opposed to the football. We've shown some little glimpses.
“We had one spell in the first half where I thought we had good control, but apart from that I think it's fair to say we didn't have total control of the game. I thought they were a good football side, some good players in there who got some control. Thankfully we were able to defend well, we were able to grind it out and we take away a massive win and I don't really care how we've done it today.
“I know there's improvements that we need to make, but there were some good things that we can take forward.”
On the importance of that first win, Paul said:
“It's huge, it's a massive thing. We've already gone two games without a victory and then if you were to get a third one everybody starts to get really even more nervous and we've had to earn it today.
“We've had to go and dig in and I'm delighted. When you looked at the fixtures we knew it was a tough start for us, regardless of the fact that we think that we're good enough to get promotion or to be challenging. It was a tough first two games so thankfully we've got that win and it sets it up for Milton Keynes next week.”
That was our first home win in some time, a point we made to Paul, he responded:
“Yeah, I mean I don't think about that if I'm going to be honest with you. What's gone is gone. We can't change anything, we have to just keep looking forward and that's what I do.
“I looked forward to this one today, I look forward to the next one and then the next home game and you have to just tick them off one by one and try and earn those results and we've done it today, now we have to try and back it up with a second one next week.”
Terell Thomas came off at half-time, we asked Paul for an assessment there. He answered:
“Yeah, he said after about 20 odd minutes of the half he just went to push off and he just felt something strange in his hamstring. He said it's not a major thing, I'll get through to half-time and he wasn't struggling with it but we just said it wasn't worth risking it and pushing in when you've got somebody like Sam Lavelle who can step straight into it and we decided to take him off and we'll assess it now over the next couple of days and see how he is.”
Ben Williams was also withdrawn in the second-half, Paul gave us an update on him too:
“Ben's was mainly tiredness, yeah, he got a whack on the top of his shin but I don't think it's a major issue, we just said look we'll get fresh legs on and I thought Jack Ellis did really well in that role the other night so I had no hesitations in throwing Jack straight onto it.”
Luke Armstrong was absent today, with his partner going in to labour this morning. Paul discussed that:
"Yeah, I'm hoping she’s had the baby by now, otherwise she's had a tough day. I got the message at about seven this morning to say that Beth had gone into labour and there's no decision to be made on that. Luke wanted to be there, I totally understand that, I get it, so hopefully they've had a good day and that'll give them a bit of a boost soon.”
On any new additions to the squad, Paul said:
“Yeah, that's what we're going to try and do, we're going to try and add to it. We've been trying towards the end of the week but nothing happened, we're hoping that we can get something sorted but we'll just have to wait and see.”
Finally, a word on the fans, 9,000+ in attendance, and even as we did the interview, the Fan Zone was still bouncing outside. Paul said:
“The atmosphere was absolutely fantastic and I mean anybody who's listening now can hear the nightclub going on in the background in the fan zone so that is brilliant to hear you know there's been so much work gone on to try and get this a better experience for the supporters and it sounds like and when I came up it's still packed out there so it sounds like they're having a good day.”
