David Artell faced the media following Wednesday evening’s 1-0 victory over Accrington Stanley at Blundell Park. The Mariners boss reflected on a dominant performance, praised his squad depth, discussed injury updates and looked ahead with optimism as Town extended their unbeaten run.

Here’s everything he had to say on the following subjects…

on his assessment of the performance:

“Yeah, thoroughly deserved. Definitely deserved. The only criticism I said to the players there is it should’ve been more. The fact that they’re still in the game after 80 minutes or at any point really shouldn’t have been the case.

“But take nothing away from the boys. We’ve had 29 shots, I think 20-odd of them were inside the box, then we score one from outside the box. Their keeper has been outstanding; he’s a good goalie, I have to say. But we deserved to win the game.

“The performance was good in both halves and we thoroughly deserve the win. I thought we played well against a very good team and made a good team look ordinary tonight, so credit to the players. It was a thoroughly convincing performance and a convincing win.”

on starting the game quickly:

“It’s important to start from the first whistle, isn’t it? There’s no point trying to get in the game if you can start quickly, then you need to start quickly.

“From literally the first whistle to the last, they had a spell probably around 80 minutes where they kept the ball well, but I can’t remember Jacko having a real save. A couple of long-distance strikes towards the end of the first half, but you’d be really disappointed if they went in.

“We’ve limited a decent team who score plenty of goals to very few, if any, chances in the whole game, and that doesn’t surprise me. What we need to do now is make our dominance at the other end tell with more goals. If we do that, we’ll have more comfortable last 10 or 15 minutes. But even tonight I don’t think we were uncomfortable, it was a thoroughly convincing win.”

on the statistics and creating chances:

“The fact that we’ve got five big chances and only scored one goal says it all really. But if we get five big chances every game, we’re going to win more games than we lose, that’s for sure.

“We know we’ve got the players to go on a right good run between now and the end of the season.”

on positives from the night and the unbeaten run:

“Lots of positives. We’ve got a lad making his debut for the club who I thought was really assured in his defending in Maldini. We’ve got a lad who’s just scored his first league goal in Ty with a wonderful goal, and he’s got that in his locker, that’s not a fluke. I’ve seen enough of him in training to know that he’s a talented boy.

“We’re not just relying on 11 players or 14 players, we’ve got a whole squad who are ready, and it’s going to take us all. Six games ago it was Jaze Kabia coming off the bench and scoring the winner at Fleetwood, or scoring a couple against MK Dons, or Justin coming off the bench and scoring.

“There’s all different roles for them to play, whether that’s starting or coming off the bench, but we feel as though we’ve got the players to do that. I think that’s why we’re ten unbeaten, so long may that continue.”

on Maldini’s debut and another clean sheet:

“I thought he stepped in well. We’ve given him whatever, ten days, two weeks, to try and get accustomed to us, and it’s really difficult coming in mid-season and hitting the ground running, knowing what’s expected of you and building relationships with other players.

“But I thought him and Ty were very good, and Maldini was what we expect of him. We want to trust our players to do well, and sometimes you wonder if you’re going to get a performance because they haven’t had a massive bedding-in period, but when you trust players, you get rewarded with performances like they gave tonight.

“If we keep playing like that, we’ll give anyone a game in this league, and hopefully we’ll give a Premier League team a game as well on Sunday.”

on Ty Sellers-Fleming’s first start and winning goal:

“The only criticism, much like the rest of the team, is he should’ve had more than one. He’s headed one over from a corner, been one-on-one with the goalie and he’s pulled off a good save, then he’s had another chance close in and one’s whistled past him at the back post.

“The good thing is he was there. He understands the role and what we expect of him, and we’ve created the chances, so it’s pleasing.

“We’ve got to demand more of ourselves so that we go from one-nil wins or nil-nils to two-nils and three-nils. That’s going to be the next challenge for us. We’re constantly trying to get better, that’s our mantra for this season: progress.”

on being able to rest Charles Vernam:

“What Chaz has produced this season has been outstanding in terms of availability, that’s not been the case in recent seasons and we’ve missed him, and then the relentless level he’s produced.

“If we can give players a breather, that helps. We gave Jaze a breather and he came on looking energised. Hopefully we’ll get the same with Chaz whenever he’s next on the pitch.

“That’s the benefit of having good players throughout the squad as opposed to just 13, 14, 15 like we had probably last year. Again, more evidence of progress for this football club.”

on George McEachran and Geza Turi:

“George is fine, he’s got a bit of cramp. We got him off before he pulls a muscle.

“Geza just had a bit of a tight hamstring, so we’re looking after him, but they’ll both be fine, I’m sure, in the next few days.”

on another clean sheet:

“I don’t think they had to do too much. Accrington kept us honest because they’re a good team. I watched them last Thursday when they beat a good Salford team 1-0. They defend well, keep you honest and have some good players.

“They put a passage together midway through the second half and I went, ‘Oh, that’s good football,’ but we managed to block the shot. Over 90 minutes we limited them to hardly anything really. That’s a credit to the whole team and squad, another pleasing aspect of our game at the minute.”

on the reaction to Saturday’s draw at Newport:

“The lads don’t need me to tell them, they knew their performance in the second half at Newport wasn’t up to our standards. We should have been out of sight first half, but we weren’t, and then we didn’t play particularly well second half.

“We still came away with a point and you go, ‘Well, actually, when you put everything into perspective, at least we haven’t lost.’ We could have won, missed a penalty and all the rest of it.

“To get a 90-minute performance is good, but we’ve had plenty of them in recent games as well. I’m not overly worried about inconsistencies in-game, that’s why we’re ten unbeaten in all competitions. We’ve got to keep going, keep playing well and keep making it difficult for our opposition to score.”

You can watch David Artell’s full post-match press conference here:

Attention now turns to Sunday as the Mariners prepare for one of the standout occasions of the season, welcoming Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers to Blundell Park in the Emirates FA Cup Fourth Round. With a sold-out crowd set to create a special atmosphere, Town will be eager to rise to the challenge, test themselves against top-flight opposition, and look to write another memorable chapter in our cup journey.

UTM