Speaking after our 2-0 victory over Bristol City in the Sky Bet Championship on Tuesday night, Brad Collins stressed the importance of keeping a clean sheet.
The Reds led through Carlton Morris’ early, instinctive finish before Michał Helik added a second shortly after to put us in a commanding position, and we stood firm throughout the rest of the encounter to seal three crucial points.
“Obviously, we started really well with two set-piece goals – something that we’ve been working on in training, so we’re delighted to see it come off,” began Collins.
“We wanted to start fast, get on the front foot and get the crowd behind us; that’s what we did. It was very similar to the Middlesbrough game where we scored two early goals and it put us into a great position going into half-time.
“We were solid. Mads and Micha headed everything, Cal’s defending was terrific – the same as Kitch and Rémy.
“The midfield screened extremely well, and we’ll take the clean sheet and it’s a very nice one to have at home in front of the fans.
“When you drop points like we did in the last two games, I think everyone almost puts a lot more emphasis on trying to see out the game because, if we’d taken three points from the last two games, we’d probably be out of the relegation zone now.
“But we’ve won and it’s two points gained, so we’ll take the five points from this week and take it into Saturday.”
The gap to Reading is now just two points as we’ve gradually clawed our way back to within touching distance of survival heading into the final weeks.
Our next assignment is a trip to Bramall Lane where Sheffield United wait in the South Yorkshire derby, and Collins believes he and his teammates will go there full of confidence.
“We want to focus on ourselves and can’t really rely on other teams not to get results because this is a fully old league,” continued our goalkeeper.
“We’ll go to Sheffield United on Saturday – it’s a big derby and the fans will be there, but I feel like we have enough in this team to go and win.”
You can watch Brad’s interview on iFollow Barnsley.
