Ahead of this week’s clash with Stevenage, Micky Mellon was pleased with the midweek win over Bradford City and will be hoping to see the same resilience and character shown in midweek.
“It’s always important to win. You’ve got to win games of football and we’re trying to find that way of consistency to give yourself a good chance of winning games. With the group that we have, if we’re scoring goals and keeping clean sheets and playing well in between the two 18-yard boxes, we give ourselves a good chance of getting results.”
Mellon was pleased with the resilience from his squad and is wanting to see more results like the one over Bradford in midweek.
“When your team turns up and shows plenty of [desire and motivation], then that’s really important. When they understand that, then everything seems to take care of itself and the last two games, the players have showed plenty of that. It’s about the squad and the players. I give them the framework to play and then they cross the white line.
He was delighted to see such a hard-working performance where his players were enjoying the rewards from their hard work.
“If you get success for your effort, it becomes addictive and they want more of it so you have to encourage that. It’s not just the runs into the box, it’s the desire to be first and knowing what the rewards are the great feeling of getting results like they did on Tuesday night is worth fighting for.”
Speaking about momentum in football, Mellon was viewing the results recently as something to progress from.
“It gives you something to build on, momentum is only important if you keep it going. You can’t just say 'we’ve done alright last two games so we can just turn up to the next one’, you need to go again. There’s stuff you can bring things from the last game but you’ve still got to show the grit and desire to go again and again.
Finally, commenting on Peter Clarke’s award this week, he was delighted for his experienced defender.
“It’s well deserved. People don’t just look at him and thinks he turns up, he works very hard at trying to sustain the performances he gives you all the time. He doesn’t just switch off, he trains, recovers to the maximum all the time and he still wants to learn and improve so he’s a great example so to anyone who wants to be a football, just look at Peter Clarke."