Lennon Praises Widemen In Fulham Victory

Manager Neil Lennon has praised the importance of our wideboys in the turnaround against Fulham last night.

Having trailed one nil in the game, we got ourselves back into it and the stepped up in the second half to take a more comfortable three one victory by full time.

Speaking to the Official Site following the game, Lennon explained that making the switch to four at the back and getting our wingers further up the pitch was key to turning the game in our favour.

‘I thought we responded superbly to going a goal down. We conceded a sloppy goal and had to switch things around at that point. We recognised the back three didn’t quite seem to be working for us. We were a little bit unsure of ourselves to start with and to be fair to Fulham they caused us a few problems early on.’

Lennon goes on to say that to begin with we definitely needed Andy Lonergan to keep us in the game with the saves he made early doors.

‘Once we got going in the second half you could sense the confidence flowing through the whole team. We wanted our wide players to get in behind and break lines and we did that, particularly in the second half. Liam Feeney and Saidy Janko provided great width and provided attacking thrust all night – they were a real handful for Fulham. We were knocking on the door once we went back to a back four and got our wingers higher up the pitch. Once we got up and running we were outstanding.’

Lennon goes on to say that once we did respond and get into a rhythm he felt we caused them endless problems, and potentially could’ve come out with a bigger scoreline – but he had to admit that with the second goal taking so long to come in the second period he did wonder if it was going to be one of those nights that we’d end up ruing.

Janko was of course making his debut, so he came in for special praise.

‘On his debut, Saidy assists one and scores a wonder goal. We’d like to think he’d be happy with his evening’s work, but you never know with Saidy. He’s a really level headed lad. It was nice for Adam to get his goal too and that’ll get him up and running. He put in a terrific shift and thoroughly deserved his goal.’