Rusk: Plenty to be happy about

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Albion under-23s continued their fantastic start to the campaign with a 1-0 win over Liverpool on Saturday.

Charlie Hanson

2020-10-17T16:45:00Z

Albion under-23s secured their third consecutive league win this afternoon.

Simon Rusk praised his team’s personality as they made it five unbeaten in Premier League 2 with a win over Liverpool this afternoon.

Reda Khadra got the only goal of the game with a stunning strike that moved Albion up to second in the division.

What are your thoughts on the performance?

“I am really pleased with the work ethic and the team showed a really good personality.

“There’s loads to be happy about and the boys can be pleased with what was a really good win.”

You’re now five unbeaten in the league, you must be delighted?

“There’s always that balance of levelling it out with the performance levels, but you can’t take it away from the lads, they’ve hung onto games when they’ve needed to and defended well.

“Today we created lots of chances against a good opponent in the first half and that reflects how we’re growing as a team.”

Liverpool’s under-23s set-up similarly to how their first team do in terms of the pressing style, but your team seemed to take that in their stride.

“Liverpool are good at what they do, the badge speaks for itself and the philosophy of how the first team play is reflected across all their teams.

“We knew there were going to be certain elements of the game we were going to have to manage, overall we dealt with their high pressing really well and we had a good balance about us.

“We mixed play up well and that’s what you have to do against Liverpool.”

The team had good chances in the first half, what was your message at half-time?

“I said ‘it’s all about psychology now’. When you create that many chances in the first half and don’t score, you might have to go through the same process, but you might not get as many chances.

“It might just be a moment of quality and that’s how it turned out with a wonderful finish from Reda. We had to manage Liverpool’s threat level as well which we did and got a really good win.”

It was another fine finish from Reda?

“He brings a level of individuality; he is a creative player and he has demonstrated that with his goals against West Ham and Liverpool.

“There’s bits to work on with him defensively, but his contribution from an attacking point of view can’t be questioned.”