Trinidad and Tobago coach Bertille St Clair was his usual serious self following Sunday's 3-1 win over St Vincent and the Grenadines but clapped his players for attempting to raise the intensity of their game.
St Clair pointed out that his players were able to combine well with each other and kept shape for most of the match but he warned them against losing concentration at certain points of the match.
"The guys deserve credit for showing fight and hunger to do better," St Clair told TTFF Media. "And that is important for us at this stage of the campaign but at the same time, we saw that we got complacent and started playing around with the ball and losing it when we should not have. But I am seeing growth in the team and hopefully we can keep this up especially with the week of training to come in Antigua," St Clair added.
Anthony Rougier who was pushed back into central defense after Keyeno Thomas pulled his hamstring in the first half, stressed that the main focus is on February 9 against the United States.
"We cannot afford to sit and think well fine, we've won today and things are okay. We are preparing right through for February 9 and I thought we got complacent and made errors that we cannot afford to make against the States. All these teams that we will be facing are very dread when it comes to making you pay for complacency or making mistakes. But you could see that there was some improvement in how we played as a team today and that is a result of hard work over the past few weeks and again this is what we will be aiming to achieve over the next couple of weeks," Rougier added.
Interim captain Derek King said he was particularly pleased to see the local-based players playing their role.
"This team is showing promising signs and it can only be good for us a team if we can continue this sort of preparations and then go out and deliver on the pitch. This week coming is going to be a tough one but we are looking forward to it because it will play a vital role in getting us ready for the bigger games," said the Joe Public player.
The team leaves on Monday morning for Antigua and is likely to travel without Thomas while midfielder Densil Theobald was taken to hospital for treatment on an injured shin following a rash tackle from one of the Vincentians during the second half.