Neal Ardley was left feeling proud of his Notts County side after they recorded a 1-0 win against FC Halifax Town on Saturday, despite playing with a man disadvantage for most of the second half.
Kyle Wootton scored his first goal at Meadow Lane within 10 minutes of Michael Doyle’s dismissal and the Magpies saw out the remainder of the game to pick up three points.
And Ardley was impressed with his side’s reaction to going behind as they recorded their second home win of the season.
“From the moment of the sending off, we were the better team,” said the boss.
“Neil Cox and I have developed a way of playing with 10 men over the years, which tweaks the shape and encourages the boys to keep playing and not get too defensive.
“Being a man down makes the job hard and the half-time team-talk goes out the window, but we made the changes and the boys carried out the plan to the letter.
“Because of that we got the win and could have had more than one goal so ‘proud’ is exactly the word.”
Ardley was delighted with the contribution offered by his matchwinner.
“That was exactly what we would want to see from Kyle,” explained the boss.
“We don’t want him flicking balls on, we want him getting between their men and linking the play.
“I worked with him a bit at the end of training yesterday and doing all we have as a team during the week helped us today.”
Notts are now four home games unbeaten, with the Meadow Lane faithful showing their joy at full-time, and Ardley hopes the side continue to make the fans happy.
“We’re all working hard for the club,” said the gaffer.
“We have a group of players who are trying, who care and are fighting, and we’ve given them a way of playing that we’ve seen glimpses of today.
“Hopefully those continue to come together and we’ll make the fans happy more often than not but we need to go hard again now and not think we are the bee’s knees because the next challenge is coming.”
