AMERICAN defender Eric Lichaj chose a good time to score his first league goal, as it settled a nervy clash with Stockport County. The on-loan full-back spoke to leytonorient.com after the game.
Eric, your first goal in league football, that must have been a career highlight?
"It was, you can see that I'm still smiling and everything. I'll call everyone back home now and tell them…"
Will you give it the big build-up?
"No, I just put it in the corner of the net, it was average really compared to some that I've seen recently, like in the Inter Milan game yesterday. It's not the best that I've ever scored, but I'll definitely remember it, it was pretty special for me."
How important was it to get that second goal?
"I think everyone on the team and in the stands was relieved, it was like 'okay, we should win this game now, a weight's off our shoulders.' I think in the first half it was just good not to concede, following the big game on Tuesday, because it took a little while to get into this one, they're at the bottom and already relegated. But we scored the two goals and it was good to get the win."
It was a vital three points given the other results at the bottom - were you aware of them during the game?
"We just saw it on Sky in there afterwards, I'd rather not know at half-time or whatever, you need to just go out and do your best to win the game. I reckon we need two more results now, six more points would be good."
Millwall next: have the boys filled you in on the local rivalry there?
"Of course, I'm really aware of it, it's going to be a big game and I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully we'll get something out of it because we really need points from every game to get us out of this."
And then you'll be back to Aston Villa in the summer?
"Back up to Birmingham, I still have one season there. I don't know what happens then, so I'm fully focused on the end of the season here, and doing as well as we can. We're on a good little run now so we need to keep it going."
Eric Lichaj was talking to Si Hawkins
