Nathan Jones was pleased to see his side kick-off their Sky Bet Championship campaign with a deserved 1-0 win at home to Watford at The Valley.
Playing in front of the club’s highest attendance for a home opener in 17 years, summer signing Harvey Knibbs scored the winning goal, on his debut, in the fourth minute of stoppage time.
“It was an emotional day all around for the football club,” said Jones. “Not just the return and a packed Valley but obviously the three we remembered today and a fitting game – the effort, the honesty we played with and then to win it in the manor that we did and to see The Valley rocking like that was truly, truly outstanding.”
After keeping a club record 26 clean sheets last season, Jones was pleased to see his side start with another one this year.
He said: “We keep saying if we do the basics right then we always give ourselves a chance to win football games. What we do feel is that we’ve always got a goal in us. To be fair we created enough today, their keeper has probably been Man of the Match for them. They could have had a pen late on but we should have had two.
“I just thought they are technically a wonderful side. They are ex-Premier League, they’ve got athleticism but I thought we matched them and once we got to grips with it we showed no fear. We went after the game and we demonstrated some wonderful, wonderful quality. I thought we just need something to fall to us in the box but when it did fall to us you probably didn’t want it to fall to anyone else on the pitch because that’s what we paid the money for and that’s what he did.”
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