Lee Bowyer was full of praise for his team after a very impressive performance saw them beat promotion contenders Barnsley 2-0 at The Valley today.
Karlan Grant scored a brace and the Addicks defence, that had leaked goals in their previous three games, hardly gave the Tykes anything.
Bowyer’s full press conference will be available on Valley Pass later this evening. Below are some of the talking points.
On the team performance…
“That’s our best performance. They are the best side we’ve paid by far. They’ve scored seven goals in the last two games, we’ve put that to bed, we kept a clean sheet. We defended like men. It proves all our hard work, that we’ve been doing the last 10 days or so, isn’t for nothing. I thought everyone from Jed up to the front two, Tariqe when he came on, everybody, George, it’s a great team performance and if you’re going to get promotion that’s what you need. I just said to them ‘We have everything in this dressing room’, so it’s great to watch, the way fight for each other. They do the dirty side, the horrible stuff because we won’t let them come off it, so I think today was a very good day.”
On the return of Krystian Bielik who was impressive at right-sided centre-half…
“It balanced us off, It probably doesn’t look like much but it does. Pearcey was out of his comfort zone playing on the right side and I think you saw it today, he (Pearce) was a completely different player today. Krystian reads the game so well for someone so you. He doesn’t panic, he makes me panic at times because he dribbles past people and I’m thinking ‘Don’t do that’ but he does it and that’s the confidence of the lad. He got cramp at the end, we’ve got to be careful with him as when he first started playing for us he got cramp, cramp, cramp and then he pulled his calf. We’ll have to watch him and see if he can play Tuesday but I thought he was outstanding, the whole back four. Anfernee and Chris Solly, solid. Jed in goal coming for crosses, punching, made a couple of good saves. The defence was outstanding.”
On winning the physical battle in midfield…
“Last season we didn’t really have that competitive side to win the individual battles. Little Josh Cullen was everywhere today, Joe Aribo (was) everywhere, Reevsey (was everywhere) and then you havie Wardie (Jamie Ward), he’s so clever, his experience and that’s why I started him today. The four of them in the middle of the park were excellent.”
On the quality in the build-up to the goals…
“They are things we worked on through the week. As good as they are in possession, you can hurt them on the turnover and that was our plan and we worked them, we showed them clips how you can hurt them and the goals were carbon copy of what we showed them through the week. They took it on board, they take on what we tell them. It proves that all the hard work that myself, watching games, Brett (Shaw, Head of Performance Analysis) and Jacko with the set plays. The one we had disallowed, we worked on that. They’re a good team, they had weaknesses and we definitely capitalised on that today.”
Bowyer’s full press conference will be available on Valley Pass later this evening.