OUR win at Oxford gave proof, if it was needed, of the value of good homework.

We knew that it was going to be tough; we had scouting reports done on them and then, as a group of staff, we sat down to come up with a plan.

Teams have come to Edgar Street, sat back and made it difficult for us while trying to take their chance when it comes around.

That was how we went to Oxford and admittedly it was not, by any stretch of the imagination, pretty.

But it was a good performance where every single player did his job and what he was asked to do.

Some of the players had to adapt their games slightly, such as Joe Colbeck who had key defensive duties.

We knew that Oxford bombed their full-backs on very well and we wanted to utilise that by getting in behind them with the pace of Stuart Fleetwood and Waide Fairhurst.

In the last couple of weeks, Joe has been excellent – I have said to him that he needs to continue like that and, if he does, then he has great potential to become an even better player than he is at the moment.

He was asked to do a specific job and so was Harry Pell on the other side.

Everyone stuck to their task and the back four and the two holding midfielders did very well, working very hard to limit Oxford to just one or two good chances.

Apart from that, Adam Bartlett did not really have to do very much.

Adisplay like that requires good defending from all over the field, including the front and I believe we have done that ever since I have been in charge. Now I think it’s getting better all the time.

Once again, in attack, Fleetwood was fantastic with his two goals.

He has helped whomever I have played with him, as well as doing well himself.

He helped Jake Jervis and Sean Canham, now he’s helping Fairhurst and, before that, he had a great relationship with Mathieu Manset.

Stuart is a great professional – whatever I ask him to do, he does.

Whether it is what he eats, what he drinks, what he takes as a supplement, or what we ask him to do in training; he does it all.

Someone like that is fantastic to have around because it rubs off on everyone else – if he is doing well and doing the right things, people will think that they should follow his example.

The more people you have around you like that, the better and Stuart has been terrific ever since I took over.

When I have had success at this club, it has been with a group of players who stuck together, worked hard together, socialised together and did, pretty much, everything together.

We have tried to build that sort of spirit and that, hopefully, is getting us results.

Results obviously have an effect on the mood in the camp – but we also have great characters like Russell Hoult and Dave Kevan and you need people like that to be successful.

Russell has now signed on asaplayer as cover in case anything happens to Bartlett.

I felt we needed some quality cover and so I twisted Russell’s arm a little bit to be that cover.

If something happened to Adam, it could make or break our season – I felt cover was essential and I’m delighted that Russell has stepped up to the plate.