Pete Wild said he makes no apologies for winning games with substance over style at this stage of the season after battling to a 2-0 victory over Cheltenham.
The Cod Army got back to winning ways following their defeat at Morecambe as goals late in each half from Matty Virtue and Mark Helm sealed the points after a scrappy game at Highbury.
It was a fourth victory in six for the Lancashire outfit, who are now much closer to the play-off places than they were when Wild took over just before Christmas.
The former Barrow manager, whose side are nine points behind seventh-placed Salford but have two games in hand, said: “These types of games at this time of year are never pretty.
“I make no apology for that. It’s the time of year and type of League Two fixture where you have to grind results out.
“I just said to the players that I’m sure they would like to play a lot more football, but it’s not the time of year or conditions for it.
“It was a hard-fought victory. We needed it after last week. We had to show another side to us.
“We need to have that bedrock and that solidity about ourselves. That’s why I’ve always done well in this division because it’s been built off that.
“You learn what you can or can’t do and what the players can and can’t do and I hope you saw that today.
“Solid foundations, hard to beat, keep clean sheets, win your home games. They are the things I talked about when I walked through the door and that’s what I want to bring to the football club. That’s what you need to do well at this level.”
Cheltenham boss Michael Flynn cut a frustrated figure after his side were left empty-handed.
“We just didn’t have any quality in the final third,” Flynn admitted.
“We didn’t make the keeper make a save and we didn’t hit the target.
“It was a scrappy game and I felt sorry for the fans. The pitch was poor and their two goals came from a foul for the first one and handball for the second one, so I am disappointed.
“But looking at ourselves first, we didn’t do enough to win the game and it probably should have been 0-0.
“Even if we had 10 strikers in the box, we would probably have over hit the cross or under hit the cross, or hit the first man.
“It’s frustrating, but I won’t go in hard on them because they’ve given me everything. They’ve had a long, long week.
“They’ve put two lots of effort in and I know we didn’t win today, but they put a big effort in, won a lot of challenges and a lot of headers. We just lacked quality.”
