Paul Dickov was impressed with his first ever cup win as Athletic's manager when his team came away from Glanford Park with a 1-0 victory in the JPT. Shefki Kuqi did the damegae with the only strike of the game after he helped a Chris Taylor effort over the line from close range. The result sent the Latics into the area quarter-finals of the trophy in their first cup win since 2008. The game was entertaining in what is regarded my many to be a 'Mickey Mouse' cup although it does give the teams a chance to walk out at Wembley for the final.
The manager commented, “I think you saw there that both teams wanted to win it. I have been really, really geared up for the game. It was something that annoyed me last year, that we went out of the cups as early as we did. It annoyed me against Carlisle in the Carling Cup as well. I believe that in a cup-tie, or in any game, if we are at it then we can win games. We have four games now until the final and can look towards the next game to come. But every club in the cup will feel as if they have a chance.”
“We put a little bit of pressure on ourselves in the last 15 minutes, but we were away from home against a very good side. It is going to happen and we knew that before we came here. They have just had two really good back-to-back wins. We had to show a lot of character to keep in the game and our two centre-halves and goalkeeper were magnificent. I spoke to the chairman beforehand about how unlucky we were at Exeter and I said we’d take a lucky win. I am not sure it was that lucky, as we played some good stuff at times. We defended well and said to the boys to keep going. I would describe it as a hard-fought win.”
Source: FOOTYMAD
