Chester boss Bernard Morley reckons their 3-1 Boxing Day win at Southport was one of the best performances since he took the helm with joint-manager Anthony Johnson.
Morley hailed the Blues on Friday after seeing them bounce back from going a goal down to win the battle between the promotion-hunting sides with goals from George Glendon, Akwasi Asante and Gary Roberts.
The victory put to bed bitter memories of last December’s 3-0 loss at Haig Avenue as well as taking the Blues back into third spot in National League North.
“That was probably one of the best performances I’ve seen in my 18 months at Chester,” Morley told cheshire-live.co.uk.
“I felt like we stuck to the game plan. We had to outwork them on their patch to get something out of the game which we clearly did. We went 1-0 down but we reacted really well and everybody stuck to their job and that is the reason we have had a great result.
“You could say we’ve been under a bit of pressure of late, and the players feel it to as they don’t just divert it to the managers, we collectively take it as a group.
“The result, 3-1, makes it looks like it was a contest but it could easily have been six or seven. Fair play to Southport they tried to keep the scoreline down and I have a lot of respect for Liam [Watson] and Jon [McCarthy] as they are always humble when we play against them.
“We’ll just go away and know that we have got to do that again on Saturday (at home to Curzon Ashton). We need to put back-to-back results together.
“As a Chester manager I’m proud of the performance and for Chester fans, I know it was difficult for them to get here today with no trains and what not. There had to be a good six or seven hundred standing in the rain. It was unbelievable and it drives us on.”
Former Ramsbottom United and Salford City bosses Johnson and Morley took over as joint managers in May 2018 following Chester’s relegation. They replaced Marcus Bignot only weeks after winning promotion from National League North with the Ammies before leaving by mutual consent.
