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Life challenging at the top of the League One table seems to suit Nat Ogbeta.
Fresh from completing his first 90 minutes since last April, the Swansea City wing-back could not keep the smile from his face after helping his loan club Wanderers to three priceless points.
Ogbeta tore his quadricep playing for Peterborough United in their push for a top six spot last season – a campaign that would, like Bolton’s, end in play-off semi-final heartbreak.
But on the night his former loan club clinched a place at Wembley after beating Blackpool in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy, his current one had taken an important step towards their own target for success.
“It has been amazing,” he said of his first few weeks with the Whites. “This has been the first time I have been at a club fighting for the title.
“I was at Peterborough last year going for the play offs but here, playing under the pressure we are playing under, the expectation, but seeing how calm the other players and the manager are, it is a great environment.
“We know what the big goal is. We are trusting the process and that what we do will get us results. We are not looking at anyone else now, it is about what we do. I am really enjoying it.
“That was the first 90 minutes I have had in about 10 months after my quad injury.
“It was one of those, the mind was strong but my body was trying to give up on me. I kept pushing and I’m grateful to God that I was able to keep defending and help the team get over the line.”
Ogbeta scored on his debut at Carlisle United and has featured four times in total since his January move from the Championship.
The 22-year-old admits he is still feeling his way back to his very best – and his arrival has also coincided with a spike in form for Zac Ashworth, who had himself struggled to make a serious impact earlier in the campaign after coming in front West Brom.
Both left-sided wing-backs, plus the returning Randell Williams, will be looking to help Evatt’s side reach their goal over the next 14 games. And Ogbeta is well aware there will be disappointment along the way.
“We want to get promotion, we want to win the league, but we can only do that as a team,” he said. “Obviously there will be some disappointed days, you might not be in the team, might not be in the squad, but you have to keep going and understand it is a team thing, and when we get what we want at the end of the season, it will be worth it in the end.
“There is competition everywhere – the strikers, the wing-backs, we have other players coming back soon as well, so you know that you have to perform in every game.
“The gaffer says everyone will be needed and obviously you want to play every game. But all you can do is make sure that when you get the opportunity you take it.”
By Ogbeta’s own admission, it was a frustrating first half at Cambridge. His performance in the second half – much like his team – was strong enough to earn a win which draws them level on points with second-placed Derby County.
Asked what Ian Evatt said at the half time interval, the defender revealed: “He was just telling us to believe in it. The word he was using before the game even started was ‘process’ and within that there will be spells that go against you.
“The manager told us we needed some more quality in the final third. I wasn’t great in the first half but second half we all came out with a different mentality. To have that belief from the manager gave me the confidence to go out and keep going.
“I was able to put in one good cross, which led to the corner and the goal. From there, Sheehan and Carlos’s quality was amazing and we dominated with the ball rather than making it into a scrap.
“That is what the gaffer wants, when we keep the ball and manage the momentum we look good. We need to keep doing that and the wins and the goals will keep coming.”
The quality of Carlos Mendes Gomes’s winning goal – and the pass supplied by Josh Sheehan, was the topic of conversation for most of the 900 fans who travelled down to Cambridgeshire for the rearranged game.
“It was an amazing goal,” Ogbeta said. “Carlos has been working really hard in training and he has been scoring goals all the time. He has showed to the gaffer that if he gets played he can take the opportunity.
“Sheehan’s technical ability is second to none, so the pass that he plays, it was great to watch.
“Sometimes you have to slog it out in the last couple of minutes but we stuck together and I was so happy we could get the win. It is a big one after we’d drawn a couple of games, it is great for momentum that hopefully we can take into the two big games coming up.”
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