Great, Smashing, Super were not words our diminutive man motivator used, preferring instead to explain his ‘delight and relief’ and our narrow 1-0 victory.
Speaking on the official site after he’d hidden his grin, Monny said he was delighted to have seen the team send the fans home happy and was impressed with the impact that John Carew had so quickly after entering the fray as a substitute in the 70th minute.
‘I am delighted and relieved. There’s definite relief because the last thing you want to do to your fans on derby day is let them down. The derby is special.’
Monny said that he thought we were in reasonably control of the match all the way through without actually creating a lot of pressure or clear cut chances.
Carew’s introduction was simply to give us a bit more muscle and an extra body upfront and Monny admits during the game we were lacking ‘his’ sort of presence.
‘That’s exactly what he did. We got the goal and it was great for Gabby to score. I am just delighted to have won.’
O’Neill admits we made life hard for ourselves and helped create a nail biting ending to the match with Blues working hard to try and get the equiliser, when of course we had two great chances to put the game beyond them.
Whilst he admits the failure to kill them off was slightly disappointing, he’s more pleased that we managed to defend resolutely and keep the clean sheet especially as Warnock, Dunne and Collins made their Baptism of Fire debuts:
‘We were brilliant at the back too. I thought the three debutants were terrific.
‘They played really, really well. You’d think they had played quite some considerable time together.’
It was questionable starting all three players but it worked out, bragging rights are ours, as well they should be, and here’s hoping to another 3 points against Pompey in a week’s time!
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