Barnsley Head Coach Lee Johnson spoke to the press after seeing his come away from Shrewsbury with a convincing 3-0 victory to secure the Reds' first clean sheet in League One since September.
Johnson described his side as ‘brilliant’ and gave special praise to two-goal hero Sam Winnall, as well as goalkeeper Adam Davies who made a crucial penalty save.
“I thought we were brilliant in the first 25 minutes.” said a delighted Johnson. “The game-plan went well. We could have been another couple up as we had some decent chances and another couple cleared off the line. They were two great finishes from Sam Winnall, we felt we could get at them with the pace we have in our wide players and we did.
“We were then comfortable for about another 10 minutes, but we then did an ‘us’ - the bad side of us. We dropped off and their first real attack resulted in us conceding a penalty but it was brilliant that it went for us and it was a quality save from Adam Davies! Two saves in fact as straight after he made another good stop.
“The penalty was beyond the call of duty, he was unlucky last week as he made a mistake but he’s performed really well recently and we asked him to keep that consistency up and he’s done that, he’s been part of a very big win.
“I am really pleased for Josh Brownhill as well, he was excellent in his first game. There was too many other good performances to talk about everybody.”
Johnson was keen to praise the fans today that travelled to Shropshire, and he feels the players put on a show that their support had deserved.
“Even though we were 3-0 up we kept going, we tried to get the fourth and fifth. The fans were outstanding today, the boys have treated them to a good performance as well.
“It was nice to see the scenes at the end, I appreciated that. They sang my name which was nice, we’ve apologised for our bad form and now we’re trying to rectify it. We’ve got 13 or 14 players now who can have a decent game against anyone in League One.
“I think we’re a different side now, we’re set up very well. We’ve had the core of this group for a while, kept the same formation and been able to get all those little tiny things that add up in a game. We’ve got the organisation we need to keep us consistent.”
Following a long run of matches without a clean sheet, the Reds managed to get one today and Johnson gave his thoughts on the important of that.
“Hallelujah!” Johnson quipped. “You could say we were lucky with the clean sheet but sometimes we were unlucky not to keep one. We had a lot of chances and we stopped them having that many. Great to get the clean sheet but most important was three points.
“We’ll just keep going and working hard. When it was really tough we had people in the staff who kept going, we all turned up every day with enthusiasm to keep the players up so I’m pleased for everyone, and it’s nice to have turned it around.”
