Town boss Paul Cook was delighted to see his side progress to round two of the FA Cup by beating Oldham 2-1 at Boundary Park, even if he admitted it was a disjointed display at times.
The Blues came from behind to beat the Latics, who are second-bottom of League Two, with Conor Chaplin and Idris El Mizouni netting the goals, the latter’s a 30-yard stunner.
"For spells in the first half, we looked like a disjointed team put together,” Cook said afterwards. "You must credit Oldham then with being excellent in both ties, looking anything but a side that’s in the league position they are.
"You always feel with us that we’ve got quality on the pitch and we’ll get moments in games, 100 per cent we knew we’d get moments in games and you’ve got to take your chances.
"I felt when they came along tonight, we got in the last third quite a lot in the second half and our quality wasn’t the best, but you keep knocking on the door and eventually you come in and I thought the character of the lads was great to come from a goal behind on a difficult night. I’m really pleased for them.
"I’m more pleased for our supporters as well because we’re now in the second round, we’ve got Barrow at home. We’ve got good league games coming up, exciting times and it’s great for them.”
Although Cook made seven changes from the team which drew 0-0 with Oxford at the weekend, it was still a strong XI which started against the Latics.
"We wanted to win and I think I was quite fortunate as picking my strongest team at home in the first leg allowed me to make changes tonight because I think our supporters were comfortable with that,” he continued.
"We picked a team to win, without a shadow of a doubt. We felt the team was balanced, it was strong, we tinkered the the formation, which clearly didn’t work early on.
"That’s not the players’ fault, that’s down to me. I felt when we fixed that little tweak in the middle of the pitch especially, we got Scott Fraser on the ball a lot more - and what a quality player he is - and then our lads shone a little bit better.
"From the first 20 minutes, half an hour where we weren’t great, I felt we grew into the game really well.”
He added: "It’s just nice for us. It is a difficult tie. You know what you’ve got in the next round. We’re delighted we’ve got a home draw in front of our crowd, it’s a game we feel we’ve got a great chance of winning and we want to do that.
"But there are no easy games, football’s changed a lot. The coaching levels in England have really improved through St George’s Park now and you can see it. Teams are very, very well coached with different formations, different tactics and you have to adapt.
"Tonight, the pleasing thing was from going a goal behind, we adapted to win the game, and that’s great credit to our players tonight.”
Asked whether getting the winning habit is more important than the way in which a game is won, Cook said: "Two of our better performances this year have been Newport at home and Colchester and we haven’t scored a goal. That’s football, sometimes you don’t get what you deserve.
"But if your repetition and your habits are good, your consistency will develop and the results will just start churning out.”
Regarding winning goalscorer El Mizouni, Cook added: "He’s just a good lad, I think he’s got a lot of plaudits this year and rightly so. Sometimes he probably gets a little bit frustrated at his lack of game-time and that’s what I want.
"And then you see his reaction tonight. I trust him, he’s a young lad who’s got a great appetite for the game and he’s going to have a good future if he keeps doing the right things.”
He added: "We felt we had a few good chances in the game, we did have good moments in the game and Oldham had a big one, by the way, where I think the lad should have scored first half.
"But, again it’s all about getting through. You’ll see tonight, there are always upsets in football, there are always clubs will think ‘We should have got through and we haven’t’ and the biggest thing for us is being in the next round and I’m delighted that we are.”
Extra-time and then penalties would have been less than welcome with the Blues at Sunderland on Saturday afternoon.
"We said on the bench with that last corner coming in, you’ve been there with us, haven’t you? On a really rainy night up north, why not wait until midnight to get home or to get on the way?” Cook joked.
"It’s us, but our supporters travelled up in great numbers tonight, fantastic support up here, they’ll travel home really happy, really pleased that we’re in the next round of the cup.”
Cook is pleased to be facing Barrow, who are 16th in League Two, at home in the next round, meaning the Blues have a decent shout of making it into the hat for round three when the Premier League and Championship enter the competition.
"Brilliant. It’s great, I said to the players there, big clubs are in competitions,” he said. "We’re not saying we’re a big club, we know we’re a League One team but we’re a League One team vying for three competitions. And long may it continue. The longer it continues, the better for everyone.”
There was good news in the selection on the bench with Kane Vincent-Young, who suffered a shoulder injury lat week, and Tom Carroll, who has been out for more than a month with a hip flexor problem, both returning.
"We wanted to get Tom on the pitch tonight but we just didn’t feel the game was right for that,” Cook said.
"I’m really pleased, we’ve had Bersant Celina on the bench tonight and one of the most pleasing aspects, whatever you ask our lads to do, they do it with a smile, and that’s really pleasing. That was a happy dressing room in there, that was good to see.”
Looking ahead to Saturday, Cook was asked whether the last few matches have put his side in good stead for the visit to the Stadium of Light.
"It’s footie, I’ll tell you at five o’clock on Saturday night,” he responded. "It’s a game that we’re all looking forward to when you get fixtures coming along like that. But you get three points, it’s football, it’s the same as playing any of the other teams in the division.
"You’ll see it everyone deeming it ‘a big game’ and then when we get to the end of the season we have bigger games. The reality is that they’re all just the same to me.”
Despite the defeat, Oldham manager Keith Curle felt there were positives to be taken from his side's performance.
"On reflection, we played well,” he told iFollow Latics. "There's glimpses there of what we're trying to produce. We've got to take credit for that because we played against a good team.
"I'm disappointed with the goal. But I'm always disappointed when we concede a goal, because I know they're stoppable.”