Slade: 'It was a good and strong away performance'

Last updated : 05 March 2016 By Michael Morris

“I thought we were really efficient in what we did as the away side,” said Russell Slade.

“You don’t always have to win in style, sometimes you just have to be efficient about what you do. It was a good and strong away performance.

“They had pressure, but we did not concede and that is important away from home. We were brave and put our bodies on the line to ensure we kept a clean sheet.

“It wasn’t a classic performance, but at this stage of the season it is all about results. The message was to do whatever it took to get the three points and we did that. If we have to win ugly, great.”

“I see it really as continued momentum. We’ve lost one in nine now. It’s important to be hitting that kind of form at this stage of the season.

“We are just working very hard, we believe now we have an opportunity and we don’t want to waste it. We’ve got 11 games left and we need to get as many points as we can now. Hopefully that will be enough to get us in the top six.

“We are starting to turn a corner I feel and make some real progress. We need to dust ourselves down now and go again against Leeds on Tuesday.

“Every game is huge now. But if we really, really want it, we feel it is there for us.”

“We were ruthless going forward and took our chances really well.

“It was a good performance from Lex, he has the knack of arriving in the box at the right time. He made the finish look simple. We are very pleased with him.

“I’m delighted for Stuart, although it was a great strike from Tom Lawrence. But fair play to Stuart it was his energy that got him up there to ensure it went in.”

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"It hurts and it's important people know that," said Lee Johnson. "We've been beaten in a derby on our home patch and everybody is in there hurting.

"We built the game up into something big beforehand and this feels like an anti-climax. We have to pick ourselves up and go again – we cannot afford to be down for too long.

"If it had ended in a draw, I would have said that would probably have been a fair result. But that is not the way football works and we cannot hide from that fact."

"Our one versus one defending needs to improve and it is something we will continue to work on. If there is one area in which I'm critical of the players since I've been here, it's that they concede goals too easily at home. Today was just poor defending."

"We adjusted the shape in the second half which gave us more in terms of territory. But we needed quality to go with that and, if there is a major criticism of my players, it is that they turned down too many opportunities to get crosses into the box.

"I remember definitely eight, maybe 10 occasions, when we could have put dangerous balls into the box, but decided to turn it down and go for another option.

"It's about thinking correctly under pressure and, at times today, we did not do that."

"It was without a shadow of a doubt a penalty. I've reviewed it several times, but I didn't need to, because I knew it was a foul straight away.

"Kieran Agard was unlucky not to get a penalty in the second half, but the first one was more important. It was a key moment in the game and it would have got us back in the game had we concerted.

"It's important you get those decisions correct. Referees are only human, but they need help at times. We are where we are and, sometimes, we are going to need those breaks to go for us and that means the officials have to be quality."