Bould - How I assess the season so far

Steve Bould has praised his side’s commitment and improvement this season, as our under-23s ended 2019 with a 3-2 victory over Dinamo Zagreb.

The tie was finely poised at 2-2 as we approached full-time, but Tyreece John-Jules slotted home Folarin Balogun’s cut-back in injury time to claim all three points in the Premier League International Cup.

We caught up with Bould after the game. This is what he said:

on the performance…

It was a terrific win in a really competitive and difficult game for us. We missed a penalty then scored in the last minute so it was a nice way to end our half season, in many ways. 

on the character in the side…

I think for the most of the year we’ve shown a lot of character. We haven’t had too many clean sheets and we’ve been behind in quite a few games so I don’t think our character has ever been in question. I thought tonight they really dug in and played some good stuff against a good team with some really good players. We’re all delighted. 

on the competition within the squad…

It’s major to have competition. Flo unfortunately couldn’t get on a little bit earlier, I wanted to sling him on a little bit early but when you’re winning the game it’s a little bit difficult to change the system. I think at the end, he created the winning goal, so it’s great competition all round. Nathan Tormey and Trae Coyle, I know they came off again, but they put in a terrific shift and I was delighted with everybody tonight. 

on his assessment of the first half of the season…

I’ve certainly seen improvement in players. I think we’re getting more confident and I’ll never question their commitment because they’re always trying what we’re asking them to do. We could do with a whole bunch of goals not going in at one end and maybe a few more going in at the other but it’s been a really good half year, they’ve improved as a team and it’s great to look forward to the next four or five months of the season. 

By Sam Cox