Ipswich Town winger Wes Burns joked that manager Kieran McKenna 'hammered him' after scoring a wonder goal in this afternoon's 2-1 home win against Coventry City.
At the end of a fine team move, the Welshman cut inside from the right and sent a swerving outside of the boot finish into the top corner from the edge of the box to give the Blues' a two-goal advantage heading into the break.
"The boss has just hammered me for not using my left foot!" laughed Burns. "To be fair I've tried it so many times in training and it's not come off.
"But the space opened up on the inside, I cut inside and, yeah, I thought 'why not try it in a game?'"
McKenna hailed the finish as 'world class' afterwards and labelled it as his favourite of the 199 goals scored since taking charge in December 2021.
"It's a funny one really," smiled McKenna, when asked about Burns' comments. "We've been talking about that since I started working with Wes because he's got a really good left foot and we're always encouraging him to use it more for inswinging crosses or for when he comes inside to shoot, but he likes shooting off the outside of his right.
SUBSCRIBERS ONLY: Alex and Stu's video verdict on 2-1 home win against Coventry
"I might tell him if he has 100 shots from there he might score more if he used his left, but I don't think you'll see a more beautiful finish than that one."
A ninth win from 10 home league games since promotion keeps the Blues a point behind Championship leaders Leicester and opens up a 17-point gap to seventh.
Burns added: "We needed to come out intense, similar as Wednesday night (3-1 home win against Milwall), and I think the lads did that right from the off. We got the early goal, we kept our discipline, they didn't really have too much in the first half to cause us any troubles.
SUBSCRIBERS ONLY: Alex Jones' plater ratings following 2-1 home win against Coventry
"We knew they were a good team, we knew we had to be compact in the middle of the field and that they would try and play through us a bit, be more direct, but we stuck to our principles and got a great result.
"To go back-to-back Wednesday-Saturday in the Championship is tough, the physical demand is top. After the West Brom result (a 2-0 away loss last weekend), everybody could have been like 'here we go, maybe we're having a little bit of a blip' but that's not the narrative within the camp. We want to win every game we go into and this week is definitely a sign of that."
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here