Boss praises players' efforts after 3-2 win
A delighted Paul Buckle thought his side couldn’t have given him any more after their 3-2 victory over Cambridge lifted them into second place in the table.
Goals from Janos Kovacs, Andre Gray and Dean Beckwith put the Hatters 3-1 up after they had trailed to Ricky Wellard’s rocket of an opener for the U’s.
And, although Cambridge pulled a goal back with two minutes, left Buckle was full of praise for his side’s performance.
“The players couldn’t have given me any more tonight,” he told Hatters Player afterwards. “They gave us everything.
“We fell behind and to come back again was a real test of character for the players. It was a good atmosphere and the game was played on a good pitch and obviously it wasn’t the plan to go behind but we had to accept it.
“It was a good strike but the thing that pleased me was that we came back and the manner in which we scored our goals – we were really aggressive when attacking our set-pieces and, perhaps we could have scored four or five.”
Indeed it could have been a greater margin of victory but the manager was keen to point out that the hard work on the training ground and in matches is beginning to pay off.
“We’ve been practising the set-pieces on the training ground and it’s been paying dividends,” Buckle continued. “We’ve been putting in some fantastic deliveries which are really hard to defend against, especially at the Kenilworth Road end.
“Tonight I thought we played with our tails up and although they got one back towards the end I was always confident we’d see the game out.
“It’s another three points that gets us closer to where we want to be at the top of the table and the only way we’re going to get there is to keep winning and keep working hard.
“We were really on song tonight but we mustn’t take our eye off the ball.
“Nobody said we would be the finished article at this stage of the season – and we will continue to work hard.
“Tonight, though, we were excellent and thoroughly deserved the win.”