Alex Revell praised match-winner Jordan Roberts after his goal midway through the second half gave Stevenage a 1-0 win at home to Charlton in League One.
It came from a quick break, started by goalkeeper Murphy Cooper and ending with Roberts playing an elaborate one-two with Jamie Reid, running on to the return to fire low past Will Mannion.
Boro manager Revell said: “Let’s be honest about it, there’s no-one more deserving to get it at the moment.
“Robbo deserves that for everything he’s putting in and when you work hard and you have the right attitude for the team, you get your rewards.”
The two sides ground each other down to a standstill in a forgettable first half but the game exploded in the second period, with Stevenage pressing forward with greater urgency and numbers.
Revell said: “We saw everything – work rate and desire and that’s now five clean sheets in eight games, which is phenomenal.
“We wanted to win for each other and it was a fantastic day.
“We’ve spoken about sending people home with smiles and you know, there’s no better feeling than that.
“We’re delighted and it gives the players real confidence in their own performance and also in what we’re trying to do.
“For the first 15 minutes or so, we probably just allowed them to play a bit too much and respected them too much.
“But once we started to get that press and we started to really knuckle down and believe in what we were doing, the belief grew.
“Yes, we had to weather the storm [late] in the second half, they chucked everyone up front and you’re going to have that, but overall it was just a magnificent performance with some real bits of quality at times.”
Charlton boss Nathan Jones was annoyed that the pre-game plan had not been adhered to, as well as his side being “too nice”.
He said: “Parts of it were good, some of the build-up was good and we’ve created the best chance of the game.
“But when you come here, you know you’ve got to do the basics well.
“We talked about certain things and we didn’t do them. We talked about giving silly free-kicks away and we did that all afternoon and we allowed them then to get a foothold.
“We couldn’t really get a rhythm and we were too nice. I didn’t really see a relentlessness about us.
“We want to evolve, we want to play a little bit more and we want to create more but I’m not sure we are at this point in time.
“We had so many situations to create something or to have done something but we didn’t.
“Ultimately, that’s down to me.”
