Huddersfield Town

The Wales international played a vital role in Town’s second successive victory this afternoon and believes the first hour was among the team’s best performances of the 2013/14 campaign to date.

“In the first half our passion and aggression really showed; the lads were flying around the pitch and everyone was working so hard. It was brilliant. At one point I turned around to Adam Clayton and asked if he was enjoying it – he told me he loved it! That summed up the mood today,” Joel told htafc.com.

“To be fair, I think their goalkeeper will be looking at himself for our first goal. Ollie (Norwood) has a terrific way of hitting the ball that moves the ball up and down and goalkeepers don’t know where it is going. He deserved the goal though; he’s been in and out of the team a bit, but he’s worked hard and has been fantastic recently. 

“Once they got the goal back the game was always going to finish with them attacking us, but I think that we sat back a little bit and stopped playing our football. The Manager wanted us to keep passing it, but most of the time we were trying to clear our box. I thought we defended well for the most part and soaked up their late pressure well. It’s a brilliant win in the end.

“Burnley are near the top of the League for a reason; they are a good side. However, we knew we could win today. We’ve been training really hard this week; whereas some teams may ease off on that front over Christmas, we’ve upped it and we’re doing more on the pitch. We felt good coming into the game, especially on the back of the Sheffield Wednesday game. 

“The dressing room is absolutely buzzing. The lads are really happy because they worked their socks off today and that makes the win mean even more. Burnley are top of the League and were on a great run so we were the underdogs today, so it is great to pick up another three points and start a little run of our own.”

Lynch, alongside centre back colleagues Anthony Gerrard and Tommy Smith, came up against one of the Sky Bet Championship’s most lethal strike partnerships in Sam Vokes and Danny Ings today and more than held their own.

Joel continued: “I’ve played against ‘Vokesy’ a lot before and I know what he’s about, but I thought ‘Gez’ and I dealt with him really well. He’s very good in the air and a lot of their play goes through him. With Ings running off him they have scored a lot of goals this season, but we did brilliantly apart from the little slip-up at the end. We deserved it.

“Tommy and I are mates. A week before he got in the side I told him he had to be looking to play football because he is a quality player and literally a week later he got his League debut! He’s a quality young player, a good lad and he deserves to be playing. He works hard every day and he deserves it; that hard work is paying off at the minute. I thought he was brilliant again today.”

Next up for Lynch and his teammates is Tuesday night’s trip to Bolton Wanderers.

“We’ve been brilliant in our last two games, but going away to Bolton on Tuesday night will be a hard game. We’ll keep working hard and keep trying to build this momentum. We have a nice style of play, but first and foremost in this division you have to work hard to earn the right to play. We will go to the Reebok with confidence.”