Interview

Ljungberg – That was exactly how we want to play

Ljungberg

Freddie Ljungberg was a happy man on Monday night as we ran out 5-1 winners over Manchester City in the Premier League 2. 

Heading into this fixture we found ourselves without a win in seven, but it was the way we secured victory that pleased our head coach most. 

We spoke to Ljungberg after the final whistle - and this is what he said 

on our dominant first-half performance...

I’m so pleased. It was exactly what we worked on in the week and how we want to play football. We’re starting to get some boys back from injury and stuff, so that helps and we were playing against a very good City side, who play some very good football. Of course as a coach when you see a performance like this, you’re very happy.

on Nketiah bringing out the best in those around him…

Of course he does. He has experience and sometimes we play some really good football, but it goes up and down when we have some experience in the side. It helps to have someone that you can look up to a bit and see how they need to work. All 23 of our players work really hard and players like Eddie and Joe set the standard for everybody else. That’s the level you have to be at.

on our fluidity in attack…

It’s so nice. It’s similar to when we started the season and were showing how we want to play football. We had amazing rotations and amazing movement, and when we didn’t have the ball we were locking onto them and making life difficult for City, so as a coach you smile.

on conceding so soon after the break…

We spoke about this at half-time and of course we did it against Brighton, so we said don’t be silly when we start the second half, be solid and be tactical. We need to do that and I don’t care what the score is, I don’t want us to concede. But we reacted and went on to dominate in the second half.

on Mavropanos’ performance…

He’s been injured since the summer and he came through well I thought. He was very happy that he could play some football again after being out for six months, so we’re all happy for him. He had minutes on him that we agreed from the beginning, so there were no injuries or anything, we just took him off.

on whether he’s desperate for our next game to come…

Yes, of course it would be nice to play again, but that’s how the league works. There’s gaps and sometimes you play five games in 17 days, and then you have a gap for a few weeks, but the main thing for us is that you see progress, the way we want to play with energy and good rotations. I’m really, really happy.

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