GOALKEEPER Sam Russell wasn't only delighted with the three points against York City; he was also pleased to see how much quality Dean saunders can call upon from the bench.

"York came here and put up a great battle from the off," said Sam.

"They put a lot of pressure on and perhaps they should have gone one up.

"Maybe we got the goal against the run of play but we battled on and it showed what a good squad we've got that the lads who came on were unbelievable.

"They kept winning headers and getting the ball away. That's what you've got to do sometimes, graft away and grind these games out.

"It's been a decent start for me. I've got a couple of clean sheets already, which is always good from a personal point of view.

"But I think I said to the papers a couple of weeks ago that I'd rather we won 3-2 every week because it's about the points at the end of the day. But it's a good start for me, because ultimately that's what I've got to do.

"The lads defended really well in front of me though. They were unbelievable today.

"They winning everything and clearing it away, and by all accounts that's the sort of opposition we're going to be coming up against every week so it's good that they can cope like that. I think it's a great result.

"Obviously I came in late in the Summer and had a couple of weeks to try to adjust. The first few trial games I had were a little bit difficult and we had a few misunderstandings and the language barrier to get over as well, but now things have improved a lot.

"Even at Crawley when we were beaten, I thought we defended solidly and we seem to be getting better with every game.

"The manager has said that everything's not going to snap in until about seven games into the season, and I think you can see that, but things are coming together well already and hopefully by the time we reach that point of the season we'll be on a roll."