Dagenham & Redbridge deserved full points says boss

Having beaten leaders Barnet at Victoria Road on Saturday, Daggers ran out 2-0 winners at Wealdstone on Monday thanks to goals from Ryan Hill and Omar Mussa.

And Strevens hailed their collective effort over the course of the two matches, telling the club website: “We knew it was going to be tough at home to Barnet and we knew it would be tough away here [at Wealdstone].

“Collectively, the boys, the way they performed in both games, I think they thoroughly deserved it.

“We recovered properly, did everything we possibly could to be right.

“Everyone wanted to stay in the team so we stayed with it and the energy levels were fantastic and the boys that came on helped us again like they did on Saturday.

“It was a real collective, group effort over the last couple of games.”

Daggers had to weather an early storm from the Stones, who had suffered their first defeat of the season at Aldershot, but Strevens felt they coped and adjusted well to remain on level terms at the break.

“They was outnumbering us, going beyond us, and it was a really tough 20-25 minutes,” he added.

“The emergency defending by the defenders, Els [Justham] pulling off saves were huge moments, giving us that bit of time to be able to sort things out, change a few people’s positions around.

“From there, we felt really good, really comfortable in the shape. Yes, they had a lot of possession because they’re very good at it, their management team is doing a great job of that.

“They were really tough to play against at times, but we felt like if we stayed solid together we’d have our moments to get some chances, and thankfully we did.”

Myles Weston had a chance to open the scoring just before half-time, but Daggers did not have to wait much longer as Hill put them in front early in the second half.

And Strevens admitted he had a good feeling before kick-off, saying: “I always talk about his end product but I said to him his debut at Eastleigh for me he played here and scored a couple of goals, both up that end, so I had a good feeling about Hilly today. I said that to him after.

“It was fantastic play by Tavs [Nik Tavares], winning the ball, everything was chaos around him, he stayed calm, found a lovely pass to Hilly and he was hitting across the goalkeeper, which we ask him to do.

“I know it took a nick but I think he was aiming for that corner anyway, whether it would’ve gone in, who knows.

“To be in that position to break off their defensive three, we knew they were going to be the areas to try and score.

“Brilliant play by Tavs and obviously really happy for Hilly to be able to get his first goal.”