Interim boss reflects on a thrilling afternoon of football at the Reebok Stadium
Jimmy Phillips says he was delighted with both the end result and the second half performance, as Wanderers came back from two goals down to win against Bristol City in a thrilling game of football at Reebok Stadium.After falling two goals behind inside the opening 20 minutes, Chris Eagles halved the deficit prior to half time with a pile-driver of a free-kick, his second in as many games.
A Jay Spearing goal, just the second in his senior career, drew Wanderers level before Martin Petrov completed the turnaround with a cool finish late on.
Speaking in his post-match press, Phillips said: “I’m absolutely delighted for the players because they’ve worked hard and have listened to what we have to say for the eight days or so that we have been here.
“I thought they showed great character and commitment to fight their way back into the match after we conceded two early goals.
“There wasn’t much that could be done for the first one, but we know that we can’t be sloppy in our own penalty area.
“I think the way they took the lead was a lesson to us all. It was a great finish for their first goal and from the penalty we need to defend better. That’s something we can work on for next time.
“With Chris’ strike it meant we could go into half time and regroup and we encouraged the players to keep playing and to increase the tempo, because we needed to move the ball quicker.
“We knew that gaps would appear in what was a very resilient Bristol City defence in the first half. Our two goals in the second half came from some fantastic forward play.
“Some of the movement was brilliant. When we didn’t have the ball we got back and made it difficult for Bristol City to gain any momentum.
“If we are to get ourselves up the league table we certainly to work on tightening up at the back.
“We’ve got a very talented group of footballers. They showed that in the second half today.
“Once again, we had a really good backing from the crowd, who stayed with us all the way through and that was really important.”