"the best of the season" says manager

Last updated : 17 February 2006 By The Chairman
Ronnie Moore described the win over Nottingham Forest on Wednesday as "the best of the season." He said, "We played some wonderful football at times and I told the players that after the game. Forest were forced to change their formation three times because we had so much time on the ball and they couldn't get at us. Tactically we got it spot on from start to finish and just didn't allow them to play. Richie (Wellens) was superb, Richard put in a hard shift to show what he is capable of and Becks was in the right place at the right time. Mark Hughes also deserved a lot of credit. We wanted him to do a special job on Jack Lester and he did it so well that Forest took him off! The players have adapted to the 3-5-2 system we are playing at the moment and it is one I like. It suits them and gives us pace out wide. We played some really good stuff although I would like us to move the ball around a bit quicker. But to beat Forest 3-0 is a great result. We have closed the gap at the top and, hopefully, we can get another three points when we go to Walsall on Saturday. If we keep playing like that we will cause problems to any side."

The manager also singled out youngster Chris Taylor for special praise. 19 year old Taylor was named the man of the match on his first-team debut. Moore said, "The kid was bright and positive from start to finish and he couldn’t have asked for a better debut. He has been playing really well in the reserves this season, so we took a gamble to see how it went. With young lads, you don’t know what you’ll get until you try them, but he played as though he’d been in the side for years. It’s nice for a player to feel appreciated and I took him off in the last minute so he could get his own little clap on the back. His family in the crowd must have been really proud, but hopefully it will be the first of 500 games for Chris Taylor."

"We’ve also got Chris Hall in the squad, Jason Taylor thereabouts and Matty Wolfenden has been on the bench, so you can see we have a good group of youngsters coming through. The whole team were excellent, though, and it was possibly our best performance of the season. I know Forest have been struggling away from home, but we’ve got nothing to fear if we carry on playing like that."