Stevenage boss Alex Revell praises Carl Piergianni after win over Huddersfield

Stevenage manager Alex Revell heaped praise on his match-winning skipper Carl Piergianni after a 1-0 success at home to Huddersfield.

Piergianni came off the bench on 77 minutes and netted the winner eight minutes later, heading home a Harvey White free-kick.

It was the second game in a row the captain had been among the substitutes but Revell felt there was no one better to seal the three points.

“Carl Piergianni has been a rock for this club and he’s one of the best captains we’ve ever had here,” said Revell.

“For me, what he does for the players as a captain is fantastic.

“But you need to come out sometimes just to refocus and get your legs and show people what they’re missing, and over the past few days, I’ve seen him training at the level which is then also pushing others on.

“We have to have that in this group, we have to have that competition.

“And what we saw was him rising higher than anyone with an aggression to win the game for the football club, the badge, and for his players.

“There’s no better person to score the winner.”

The victory was the second for Boro in 2026 and only the second in 12 matches, and the manner of the win pleased the boss.

Revell said: “That’s what you have to do to win games and in this run we’ve been on, certain moments have really hurt us.

“But when you keep working as hard as these players do and they’ve got their head down and they’re concentrating on the information they’ve been getting from all the staff, you get your rewards.

“All I’ve asked is at the end of the season, you look at each other and say, do you know what, we’ve given it a right good go. And today we gave it a right good go.”

Liam Manning, the Huddersfield boss, felt his side should look inwards for the reason they lost.

“You’ve got to be disciplined and not give away cheap free-kicks,” he said. “If you compare the second half to the first, we gave away more.

“When you get to the later stages, and you’re getting tired, you can’t make some of the decisions we did if you want to come away with something from the game.

“If it finishes 0-0, which it could have done, you come away thinking we’ve showed fight, and some togetherness, resilience and spirit and you accept it’s a bad game and move on.

“For me, it was a two-minute period where we kind of switched off a little bit, a few too many errors.

“That’s the frustrating bit, it’s probably on us again, it feels like it’s on us.”