In his own words: Phil Parkinson post-Bristol Rovers

Read the manager's thoughts following Wanderers' victory at the Memorial Stadium on Wednesday

Phil Parkinson offered up his thoughts following his side’s victory over Bristol Rovers on Wednesday evening.

First half goals from Josh Vela and Jay Spearing put Wanderers into a commanding position at the Memorial Stadium, with Ellis Harrison’s effort for the hosts ultimately proving scant consolation at the final whistle.

And speaking after the game, the manager covered the following points…

On his side’s impressive start to the season…
We’re very pleased. It was a tough game against Bristol Rovers – you only have to look at their record where they’d had 15 out of 16 wins in the league at home leading up to this game to see that.

To take 46 points out of a possible 48, we knew that it was going to be tough but we did well.

It was a very partisan crowd who were right behind the team and that was a real challenge for us tonight, but we came through it with flying colours.

On his expectations ahead of the game itself…
We knew that it would be tough – having come down to watch them in their game on Sunday, I immediately thought that they were a very good side and you can see why they’ve been on such a good run.

They’ve got threats from the bench too which freshens the team up from game to game and that’s what you need in this division.

From our own point of view though, we knew we had to learn from Saturday having started slowly there and gotten punished for it.

Tonight though, we started quickly and I was very pleased with our overall first half performance. There was a great balance in our play and we passed it through the midfield diamond although we did have the option to go through the middle with Gaz and down the sides with Proccy.

That balance proved difficult to handle for Bristol though and we scored two excellent goals.

On Josh Vela opening his goalscoring account for the season...
It was a great team move which led to it. We broke away from the corner, Proccy’s picked up a loose ball and we’ve moved from box to box very quickly.

It was a real top class goal which was eventually finished off by Josh – I’m so pleased for him and he thoroughly deserved that considering his form so far this season.

On Jay Spearing’s second goal of the campaign…
Jay’s free-kick really is as good as you like – it’s right on the postage stamp. He’s a very good technician though and we see it in training all the time. His shooting ability is excellent and that’s shown through his two goals already this season.

You need big moments in games and especially in matches such as this, when we knew it would be difficult, it’s down to us to produce real moments of quality like that goal.

On the club’s superb travelling support at the Memorial Stadium…
They were fantastic all the way through. When somebody told me that we had 700 fans here, I couldn’t believe it really, especially on a Wednesday night.

I’m so pleased for them though, because they’ve travelled up and down the country without much success on the road.

The one thing I want them to leave games feeling though is that they’ve seen a fully committed Bolton Wanderers performance and they’ve certainly seen that tonight.

And finally, on the visit of Fleetwood Town this weekend…
The aim is of course to make it four out of four at the weekend. We’re pleased with the three wins but we need to use them to keep the confidence building whilst not getting carried away.

We’ve also got to remind the lads over the next few days of the qualities we’ve shown that have got us the results and take those ingredients and put them together again on Saturday.

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