Garry Monk was pleased with Wednesday’s 2-0 win in his first game in charge at Huddersfield on Sunday … but said there is still plenty of room for improvement.
Headed goals in either half by Stephen Fletcher on 10 minutes and sub Sam Winnall 18 minutes from time – his first for us in more than two years – ensured all three points for Wednesday and left Monk to reflect: “You have to be pleased with any win in this division and particularly at what is a difficult place to come to, with a new manager as well.
“But we did our jobs, we scored at the right times I thought, and it was a thoroughly professional performance.
“Of course, we can do things better, that’s football and from a coaching perspective there are always things to improve. But that will come with time. I’ve been in the job a few days and there’s a lot to work on but today I was pleased with the performance and pleased with the result.”
Huddersfield, with new manager Danny Cowley in the opposite dugout, looked lively going forward at times but lacked a cutting edge and we have not conceded an away goal against them in the last eight games.
We created the better openings and landed the points with two well-constructed goals, Fletcher nodding home Kadeem Harris’ cross before man-of-the-match Barry Bannan’s excellent ball found the head of Winnall and he glanced home in style.
Monk added: “When you first come in and you’re working with a really short period of time, you’re never going to expect it to be exactly what you want or perfect but what I’ve tried to do this week with the players is give them little samples of what we want to try and be.
“You saw today that it wasn’t perfect but their first attempt at some of the stuff we were asking of them was very good, I was very pleased. The offensive side needs a lot of work on but we’ve got good players with quality.”
Commenting on the squad he has inherited, Monk said: “There have been doubts about this squad and these players for the last couple of years, for whatever reason.
“I don’t know what’s gone before, maybe this squad haven’t had enough belief to produce the quality we all know they have. But they’ve been great since I’ve come in. I’ve been really pleased with the response of the squad.”
The win takes us back up to ninth place on 12 points, one behind the play-off places and trailing leaders Leeds by four points.
Westwood, Odubajo, Borner, Iorfa, Palmer, Murphy (Winnall 60), Hutchinson, Bannan, Harris (Lee 85), Reach, Fletcher (Nuhiu 82). Unused subs: Dawson, Bates, Fox, Luongo.