Martin ‘Proud Of The Players’ After Stockport Triumph

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Martin ‘Proud Of The Players’ After Stockport Triumph

Russell Martin came away satisfied with his side’s 4-3 victory at Stockport County but also pointed to areas of improvement which need to be made.

2026-09-12T23:00+01:00

by Sam Jones

Published

12 Sep, 2026

Martin ‘Proud Of The Players’ After Stockport Triumph

Russell Martin came away satisfied with his side’s 4-3 victory at Stockport County but also pointed to areas of improvement which need to be made.

Sam Jones

2026-09-12T23:00+01:00

Martin ‘Proud Of The Players’ After Stockport Triumph

Russell Martin came away satisfied with his side’s 4-3 victory at Stockport County but also pointed to areas of improvement which need to be made.

Sam Jones

2026-09-12T23:00+01:00

Martin ‘Proud Of The Players’ After Stockport Triumph

Russell Martin came away satisfied with his side’s 4-3 victory at Stockport County but also pointed to areas of improvement which need to be made.

Sam Jones

2026-09-12T23:00+01:00

Martin ‘Proud Of The Players’ After Stockport Triumph

Russell Martin came away satisfied with his side’s 4-3 victory at Stockport County but also pointed to areas of improvement which need to be made.

Sam Jones

2026-09-12T23:00+01:00

We defeated Stockport County 4-3 at Edgeley Park on Saturday
The goals came from Emil Riis (2), Liam Cullen and John Lundstram
Russell Martin assessed our first away victory of the season

A rollercoaster of an encounter at Edgeley Park saw goals from Liam Cullen, Emil Riis (2) and John Lundstram help City record a first away win of the campaign on Saturday, though Stockport had their moments, pulling it back from 4-1 in the second half and threatening a late comeback which almost materialised.

Speaking following full-time, our Manager reflected on the importance of getting over the line to put three points on the board in Sky Bet League One.

“I'm really proud of the players, they showed so much resilience, so much fight, so much grit,” Martin commented. “We made it hard for ourselves. We were playing against a really good team. It's not easy to come here, they’ve had a lot of success here.

“We've played some brilliant football, so I don't want that to be overshadowed by the last 15-20 minutes, when actually, we then showed the other side of our game and I really don't want it to look like that very often.

“We won, which was the massive response from last week. We scored four goals away from home, but we conceded poor goals. When we went 4-1 up, we started the second half off so well.

“If we don't concede in that 10-15 minutes, it can be a completely different game. But we did and the momentum swung, and at that point we had to be flexible and adapt. We did and we defended with real resilience.”

Debuts from the off for the experienced Warren O’Hora and goalscorer Lundstram were big pluses from the afternoon, alongside the link up between Riis and Cullen, with Ilari Kangasniemi also introduced as a substitute for his City bow, making a contribution to us holding out for the win.

“The subs really helped as well,” he continued. “Ilari makes his debut for us, really big. Warren was fantastic. I think having Warren and John in the team, experienced guys, really helped us. We had such a young team last week, so they helped us along.

Photo 1/26

Imagery from Edgeley Park as we faced Stockport County in Sky Bet League One.

“Lunny (Lundstram) showed everything he's going to bring us, and he has brought us this week in training. The fight, real quality with the ball, courage, bravery to take it, and aggression, intensity and a voice on the pitch.

“You see him at the end, he’s knackered because he hasn’t played. The plan wasn’t for him to play 90 minutes but he had to and he dug in and he got people around him and spoke to people.

“That's really important, because we didn't have that on the pitch last week. Wozza (O’Hora) is exactly the same. He played an amazing pass through to Louis Page who had a good chance from it.

“He fought and defended really well and he’s fatigued at the end because these guys are coming into an environment when we train really intensely and work really hard on certain things.

“We worked a lot this week on trying to get two strikers closer together near to goal and it worked. I'm really pleased with that because the players worked really hard on that and they both got goals.

“The move (for Riis’ goal) was brilliant. Although the last pass maybe took a bit of a deflection, the move and the intention was fantastic. We've played some brilliant, quick football through them today. We scored some really good goals.”

Highlighting aspects of the performance which were not up to standard, Martin pointed to the number of set piece opportunities created against us, but also directed his praise towards the group’s mentality after a difficult weekend last time out, responding in the best possible way.

“A lot of their chances were set plays,” ther 40-year-old explained. “They went direct because they've got a real threat in [Kyle] Wootton up front. I think, on the whole, we managed that part quite well in open play. But we had some problems with set plays today for sure.

“I’m not happy with the last 20 minutes. I'm really happy with the level of fight, grit and resilience, but I'm not happy about the game. We have to be better than that. The ball kept coming back. There’s loads to work on. We’re really happy with the resilience of everyone this week at the Club.

“We showed everything we probably got questioned on last week: character, fight, togetherness, putting your body on the line, they showed that. And even the couple of goals they had disallowed, it’s because we were brave enough to get up and have a high line and hold it and be aggressive.

“This week, there’s been so much togetherness. The team's so young and we have to be flexible and adapt to certain games and certain shapes like we did today and change things. It'll grow.

“They’ve not been together very long, many of the players, but we'll get better. They’ll build understanding and connection. But we always have to bring this level of aggression and willingness to run and fight together and defend together, because that’ll be really important.”

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