Brandon Njoku delivered a dramatic late winner as Sutton secured a 2–1 victory at home to Braintree Town, and he felt there was little between the sides on the day.
The forward produced a crucial impact off the bench, notching his first goal since November after a superb move led to Jayden Harris backheeling the ball into the path of Njoku, who arrowed a powerful volley into the top corner to rescue a point.
“I think there wasn’t a lot in it, to be honest. We could have punished them in certain areas, and they could have done the same to us.”
“But I thought we defended really well. If we take our chances, we can put them to the sword and come away with three points comfortably.”
On his goal, Njoku said that for a striker, it was instinct and positioning that made the difference, and he added that coming off the bench to score such an important goal made it even sweeter.
“I saw Jayden Harris driving through and I showed back inside. Thankfully, he had the awareness and the skill to find me, and I managed to put it into the top corner.”
“As a striker, that’s where you want to be – in and around those areas in the penalty box – so I was pleased to be there and take the chance.”
“It felt really, really good, especially because recently I haven’t been the most confident.”
“I’ve been playing with a few injuries as well, so it was nice to get the goal.”
“The manager always says I’ll get a chance when I come on, and I did today.”
The forward could have also got the winner, if not for a moment that saw him fall victim to the downpour through the evening. After anticipating a poor backpass, he rounded Mason Terry in the Braintree goal but was unable to keep his footing before pulling the trigger, and despite his best efforts to recover, saw what would have been a highlight of the season fade away.
“To be fair, I saw him go to play it back to the keeper and I anticipated it.”
“I knew I was going to go around him, but I just couldn’t get my footing right. It was unfortunate because it would have been a really good moment.”
Looking at the bigger picture though, Njoku said he sees the result as a platform to build from, with the manager’s message afterwards reflected both pride and realism.
“We didn’t quite get the win that we wanted, but we see it as an opportunity to build an unbeaten run.”
“Of course we’re disappointed not to get the three points, but we can’t dwell on it. We’ve just got to look towards Saturday now.”
“He [Chris Agutter] said he was proud of the way we fought, especially after going down to ten men.”
“But he also said we have to take our chances to put teams like that to the sword. That’s definitely something we need to work on.”
“Overall though, he sees it as a step in the right direction.”
He went on to say that Charlie Bell’s red card seemed to galvanise them rather than weakening the side.
“To be fair, I think it gave us a bit more grit and desire to work together and get the goal we felt we deserved.”
“We stuck in, we dug in, and in the end I think we deserved what we got.”
With plenty of games still to play, belief remains strong within the group.
“Keeping the faith is really important. We’ve got so many games coming up and we can’t dwell on recent results.”
“I think long term we’ll be in good stead. We’ve got a good group, and we’re definitely looking at today as more of a positive than a negative – something to kick on from and build momentum.”
