Jamshedpur FC head coach Aidy Boothroyd was pleased with the victory against a resilient Northeast United FC side as the Red Miners secured their first win of the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2022-23 season.

Peter Hartley’s header in the first half proved to be the difference in the end as NEUFC suffered their fourth straight defeat.

Boothroyd thanked the supporters for coming out in huge numbers and cheering for the team until the last minute, as he dedicated Jamshedpur FC’s first win of the season to the supporters.

Here are the excerpts from the press conference:

This is the first win of this season. What are your thoughts about the contest?

It was a good contest, a physical contest. For us, it's a good win because it means we got three games and four points. That's a respectable start, particularly against two teams that are amongst the top half of the league. In terms of this game, we knew it was going to be a tough game. They changed their system to playing a 5-4-1 which is difficult to break down, so the fact that we scored from a set play means that we deserved the win.

Against Odisha FC the team was defending deep in the last 10-15 minutes  and we saw the same thing happening today. So why is it happening in all the matches?

I don't think we are defending in all the matches. Today as well, we had a chance where we could've scored and taken the score-line to 2-0 and it’s game over. Sometimes we do look to play on the counter-attack as we have fast players. I think when it's your first home game in a while and the support is amazing from the crowd, it's important to win the game and we know we have to get better. The majority of the time, we want to play on the front foot against opponents and we will get there.

Are you happy with your defense? How do you reflect on their performance till now?

Against Odisha FC, there was a time when we decided to tie it up. The second game was against Mumbai FC, the team which had just won the double (in Hero ISL 2020-21)  and was good. We had a game plan to stop them and we did. Tonight, we wanted to seal the victory. We still have a lot of work to do, but we all are very happy for tonight. I thank all the supporters for the support tonight.

Will Jay Emmanuel Thomas get to play the full 90 minutes in the next match?

He's got a good chance, yeah. He's getting stronger and fitter all the time. Today, he had a good chance and he scored. He's an assister and a goal scorer, so he's got a good chance in the next game.

Last season everyone was talking about young players playing for Jamshedpur FC, this season as well we have a good number of young players in the squad. Are they performing well as per your expectations?

They are good players. Young players need a head coach who can believe in them. It's different when the players perform well in the first season and get applauded a lot. So, we want them to be focused. I hope along the process, the young players will be more consistent and I'll be really glad about that.