Wes Burns heaped praise on match-winner Omari Hutchinson after Ipswich Town kept up their flying start to Championship life.
Hutchinson slid home in the 30th minute to give Ipswich an impressive 1-0 win at Southampton – and their second consecutive clean sheet on the road.
Burns singled out the loanee, who started his first league game in place of Nathan Broadhead, saying: "I’m really, really proud for him. He has come in from Chelsea, he has got his head down and worked his socks off and he deserves his start tonight – and deserves his goal. It topped off a brilliant away performance.”
Brilliant was a fair summary from the Welsh winger as Ipswich showed an impressive mix of discipline and nous while also creating chances that would have made the scoreline even more comfortable.
Their performance also backed up the stats that are highlighting what a start Ipswich have made to the Championship with six wins from seven.
Burns explained: "I think it is a credit to us as a team. I think there is a stat on social media that we are the fastest attacking team in the Championship and I think you can see that.
"Without the ball, we are still very, very dangerous. And as soon as we turn over the ball, the transition from defence to attack is obviously the fastest. I think that’s how you catch people cold.
"I’d be lying if I said we would do six wins from seven - I would have been slapping your arm off for that. I think it just comes off the back of having a real disciplined shape.
"We are probably the hardest-working team in the week and between the games – I said it last year and I feel like I say it all the time. I think we are reaping the rewards of all the hard work we do on the training ground.
"We do a lot of work on the opposition team and I think you can see that when we go out on the pitch. We know exactly what we need to do to get the win.”
Like Hutchinson on the other flank, Burns put in another impressive performance, showing his abilities at both ends of the pitch. He came close to scoring in the first half and then produced an eye-catching defensive tackle near the end.
He said: "Going back to it, I probably should have done better with my chance. We created a lot of chances which is good. If we weren’t creating chances, it’s a bit of a problem. But chance creation isn’t an issue of ours. As long as we can keep the clean sheets as we have, we will be fine.
"It’s not my art of the game, to be fair, tackling. It’s lucky that I did time it quite well. It’s one of those ones where even if I didn’t win the ball, it’s probably a good professional foul as they were breaking through the field. It’s one of those ones where if I don’t get it right, I’ll take one for the team.
While Southampton enjoyed a lot of possession, Burns hinted that was part of Town’s game plan with Vaclav Hladky barely troubled in the away goal.
Burns explained: "Their manager [Russell Martin] has been at MK Dons and Swansea and now Southampton so we knew the structures and the way they would play would be very similar.
"We knew they would be a very possession-based team. They have players rolling in, full backs going into midfield, so we knew that blocking the middle and not letting any passes through the middle of us would be very key.
"So we tried to make everything go down the sides of us and defend from there. I think we’ve done that for the whole game and when you keep clean sheets and you have the quality that we have upfront, you are always going to have a chance of winning.
"I think there can be a misconception that when a team has a lot of possession, it can feel like that we are under the cosh and things like that. But it’s very different when you are out there and you know we have such a strong, disciplined shape.
"We knew exactly what they were going to do before they even did it so it’s easy to read where passes are going. You saw that many times they were just kicking balls away, to us or off the field.
"We were showing angles that we know they want to play. I think the goal comes from a brilliant disciplined press and we could have had a couple more.”
The clean sheet was particularly pleasing – both for defenders and more attack-minded players alike – with Burns sharing a sense of disappointment over some of the goals conceded in the early stages of this season.
He said: "We are all human so human errors are going to be a part of football. There were a couple of sloppy mistakes for goals before the international break. But I think that’s part and parcel of football – you are going to make mistakes.
"We are in the Championship now and there are a lot of high-quality players. We probably would have got away with a few of them last year, but this year we can’t.
"I think, if anything, it has taught us a lesson in terms of being switched on mentally for a lot longer. For us to come away from home, back-to-back with Wednesday and now tonight, and grind out 1-0 wins is a sign of a good team.
"We came here tonight and stuck to our principles, stuck to our disciplined shape, and we knew we could hurt them if we shut up shop. And that was the end result.
Ahead of a return to Portman Road and Blackburn at home on Saturday, Burns added: "The bus journey [back from Southampton] will be a good one – they always are when you get three points. There will be a lot of cards thrown [playing cards] and everyone will be buzzing with lots of happy faces.”