Boss Paul Jewell was delighted with the three points as his side defeated Sheffield United 3-0 at Portman Road, their third league victory on the spin. The Blues boss compared striker Connor Wickham’s brilliant third with a Thierry Henry goal from years gone by.
Jewell said: "At the end of the day, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s an important three points. The first half, with the windy conditions and the lively pitch, it was never a classic.
"We said at half-time that if it was going to be ugly again in the second half, if we have to win horrible, we have to win horrible.
"As a footballer the worst conditions are those gale force winds and I don’t think you can appreciate how bad it was at pitch level.”
Even so, the Town manager felt his side performed much better after the break: "In the second half the game opened up a little bit, certainly after we got the second one and we looked a different team.
"That belief only comes with winning matches, scoring goals, keeping clean sheets and all the stuff you need to do to be successful.
"To win three league games on the bounce at any level is very difficult, so a big credit to them, but now we forget about that, try and learn from it and move on towards Barnsley next week.”
Jewell hailed Wickham’s goal, the youngster’s best for the club so far: "It was a great goal, if anyone else had come on the pitch he would have gone past them as well! It was a great goal and it should do bundles for his confidence — and his price!
"He’s got that in his locker. In a 17-year-old player you’re going to get inconsistencies, he’s going to be up and down. He can do that and we’d like him to do stuff on a more regular basis but we have to be patient with him because he’s just a young player.
"It was just a brilliant goal, it was like Thierry Henry’s against Tottenham all those years ago in a north London derby where he picked it up went past everyone.”
Blades boss Micky Adams was honest in defeat: "Can it get any worse? I hope not. You have to be fearful that it could. We’re disappointed. It’s hard to think of any positives at this moment in time.
"Taking away all the goals, the two sendings off were ridiculous from our point of view. I’m not complaining, there’s no need for Lee Williamson to get involved, I can’t condone what either of them did really.
"Kozluk was upset with the tackle on him and I could see why he was upset, but it had gone. He’s experienced and he should know better.
"Having said that, the game was already over anyway. We’re having a problem when we get to the final third, we either don’t deliver the right ball or because confidence is so fragile at the moment, we’re looking to set people up rather than pull the trigger ourselves.
"We have to defend properly and obviously the first two goals were killers because we haven’t defended two set pieces, which is disappointing. Things that can be avoidable, we got wrong today.”