MacDonald gives Thompson a confidence boost (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

SWINDON TOWN: MacDonald gives Thompson a confidence boost

6:00am Saturday 9th March 2013 in Sport By Sam Morshead

PRAISE: Nathan Thompson

AFTER working with Kevin MacDonald for only a week, Nathan Thompson is comfortable to brand the new Swindon Town boss a “great appointment”.

MacDonald was formally unveiled as Town manager last Friday and got his reign at the County Ground off to the perfect start with a 2-1 victory at Coventry.

In the early moments of that game a costly mistake by Thompson led to Swindon’s opponents gaining a cheap lead through Franck Moussa, but the fact that MacDonald chose to support rather than berate his defender in the immediate aftermath of that incident has led the full-back to sing his manager’s praises.

“He gave me so much confidence to keep playing, carry on doing what I’d been doing and when you’ve got that on the side of the pitch it does help massively. For the younger lads especially coming through, he’ll be fantastic for them,” he said.

“In the first week with him in charge you’ve seen straight away that the youngsters and the boys are really enjoying it. I think he’s a great appointment and it will drive the boys across the line for the last 11 games.

“When Wardy (Darren Ward) and Tommy (Miller) took over it was always going to be difficult for them to step up to that and I think they did a fantastic job, but to have someone like the new gaffer come in and just steady the ship a little bit has been fantastic for us.

“To go up to a team like Coventry and put in a performance like that in the first game under the new manager really stands us in good stead for the next couple of games.

“I’ve never said so many prayers. When Wardy scored that header I think I was the most relieved person in the stadium.

“In the first 10 minutes of that game I really felt like I was off the pace and it was just a silly mistake to have made but thankfully the boys pulled through.”