Manager Paul Jewell blamed a lack of confidence for the number of long balls played by his side during the first half of Saturday’s 3-2 victory over Doncaster. The Blues boss felt his team played more of the football he wants from them during the second period.

Jewell said: “It’s like everything else it’s confidence. We were playing long balls when I didn’t want us to play long balls. In fact, if you see the first Doncaster goal, the ball should have gone long, we tried to play it short, lost possession and they scored from it.

“The difference between when you’re playing well and playing badly is that a long ball becomes a long pass. As good a team as Doncaster are, if you look at the stats, they’ll play lots of long passes, ours might have been long balls.

“I thought the crowd were terrific, they didn’t turn on our players and the players responded to the crowd.”

The former Wigan and Bradford boss says he recalled Lee Martin from his loan spell at Charlton as he felt the team needed more down the flanks: “I asked a couple of members of staff about bringing some of the loan players back. I just felt that in the wide areas we lacked a bit of a spark, someone who can carry the ball and I think Lee gave us that. He gave us something different we didn’t have.

“In the second half, when we got the ball down and passed it, we created lots of opportunities and looked a completely different team.”

Martin and Colin Healy, players who had rarely been involved under Roy Keane’s management, both played important roles in Town’s victory and Jewell says the former Ireland international has done well since he’s been at the club: “I’ve been impressed with Colin. The lads have all given us everything they’ve got and that’s all we ask for. Hopefully as time evolves we will get better. There’s no magic wand, it’s still a long-term project.

“Colin Healy gets on with his job, he’s a terrific professional, as I’ve found with them all. I don’t want to single anybody out really, I thought it was a terrific team effort. Not just the XI that played, it pleased me to see that the rest of the lads who weren’t playing were as pleased as punch for the rest of the team.

“That’s what we want to try and do, build that spirit within the team, within the camp, within the support, within everybody. That will only come from winning games, I understand that, but as a manager I like to see everyone pleased and happy for the team.”

The new boss switched Carlos Edwards to right-back and the 32-year-old revelled in the role, even scoring the winning goal. Jewell says wanted his full-backs to push on: “Carlos has played at right-back for Trinidad and has played there a few times with his clubs. They’re a difficult team to play against Doncaster because they have that system and they are very smooth in the way they move.

“Sometimes in the first half we were chasing a few shadows, so we changed it around. I want my full-backs to get forward at the right time and even a couple of times before the goal, I’ve thought ‘Go on, have that bit of belief’, and he’s hit it and it’s gone in."

Jewell joked that the new contract that Connor Wickham signed on Friday gave the 17-year-old striker the boost that led to him scoring his first goal of the season: “It’ll be that 20-grand-a-week deal he’s just signed doing him a power of good! That’s a joke, by the way.

“I don’t really want to put too much pressure on the lad’s shoulders because he’s just a young lad in a man’s body. It was a terrific header, a great ball in by Colin. I think he had about six or seven shots on target.

“We could have had more goals, we had a couple of two-v-one situations on the break where we got caught offside. We had good opportunities and didn’t make the keeper work. But today is about the team and getting those three points.”

Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk

Photo: Action Images

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