CARETAKER boss Rob Kelly praised his players despite a tactical masterstroke getting Barrow back to winning ways.

The Bluebirds’ manager employed Patrick Brough at left wing-back instead of the left side of central defence.

And the match-winner took full advantage of two Kellan Gordon errors to propel the battling Bluebirds out of the relegation zone.

The reality is we are where we are. We aren’t going to suddenly flick a switch and play like Barcelona,” stressed caretaker boss Rob Kelly.

“They’re human beings, we want to play like that and we want to play good football but they’re not robots.

“There are a lot of things involved rather than technical and tactical stuff.

“You’ve got to remember that confidence is a big thing, it plays a big part.

“Things like belief and trust are also huge.

“It’s great when things come off and I just treat them as footballers, it’s not a tactical thing.

“KG’s [Kgosi Ntlhe] come from a long injury and has played a lot of minutes since coming back and he can play left centre back.

“For this one I just thought it’s a home game and we need to get at them.

“Patrick’s probably a bit more aggressive going forward and that was my thinking and thankfully it came off.

“I wanted to get us higher up the pitch, there will be times where I can’t do that, but I thought today that was the right thing to do and fortunately for me it came off.

“But it wasn’t me who did it, it was them who executed it on the pitch.

“So every credit to them, not me, it’s what they did.”

Ryan Sweeney was sent off for the visitors before Brough bagged a three-minute brace to secure a vital three points.

And Kelly praised his side’s endeavour to put the game to bed instead of sitting on a slender lead.

He said: “I think it’s important not to just try and protect your lead, you need to extend it.

“That’s only common sense. I didn’t want to just sit on the edge of our 18-yard box and invite pressure.

“I wanted us to try and get another one without going gung-ho.

“I wanted us to go and win the game with the ball than without it. It’s just common sense really.

“I thought we played that situation well.

“It was always going to be a difficult game with two sides at the wrong end of the table, desperate to get the points.

“It was important in the first half to just be in the game and it wasn’t an appealing spectacle.

“But we stayed in the game, we showed the other side of us and then we kicked on a and were brave.

“Tuesday night we got sucked in to their game and that’s credit to Harrogate.

“We started to ask more questions and that’s when the red card happened and we got our rewards.”