Cotterill Praises His New Boss Paulo Sousa

David Cotterill praised his new manager Paulo Sousa after scoring a goal and assisting the other in Saturday’s 2-0 win against Preston North End.

The winger joined the club at the end of last year for a £600,000 fee from fellow Championship side Sheffield United.

The move to the Liberty Stadium seems to have kick-started his career, as he was struggling for regular first-team football at Bramall Lane. Blades boss Kevin Blackwell said his lack of consistency was the reason for why they sold him, but judging from his recent performances and goals, they may regret it.

David Cotterill told the Evening Post that Paulo Sousa has been great with the Welshman since he joined:

‘Personally, the manager has been great with me and helped me get to where I want to be,’

‘He knows the game inside out and he’s been there for me. Hopefully, if I can keep working on the way he wants us to play, I can improve as a player and help the team improve.

‘He doesn’t shout and bawl, it’s instructions about getting it right.

Cotterill put us in front on Saturday with an excellent free-kick from the edge of the penalty box, he added:

‘I definitely enjoyed that one,’

‘We bossed the game and passed the ball extremely well from start to finish and it gave all of us a lift.

‘Nathan (Dyer) was causing havoc down the other wing and got us some good early chances, but getting an early goal was massive for us because we’ve seen how sides come here and try to frustrate us.’We got that and it gave us confidence to make sure we got the result.

‘Sides come here and sit back, but Preston couldn’t live with us ? and they are a good side themselves so it just shows how good we were.

‘But we need to keep hitting those levels and if we do we can do a lot in this league.’

Cotterill now says the team must keep it going but there’s plenty of potential to maintain our play-off spot come the end of the season.

‘We’ve stayed in the top six after dropping a few points in recent weeks and now we’ve won there are a few points between us and sixth and seventh.

‘If we can build on this confidence, we can start pushing on even further.

‘We can’t get ahead of ourselves so we have to only look at the next game. But we are getting there.’