COACH ALEKSANDROV AFTER SUNDAY DERBY

This win is dedicated to Dino and his family and our newest addition to the club - Alana!

We deserved to win this game. We've prepared well and we knew what was needed to win it.

We knew what to expect and executed our plan well.

It could have been with less drama at the end, but it shows the growth of our team as a group and individuals, that even if tough moments, we can resist together.

Feratovic is one of our greatest additions to the squad - he is a player of another level. We've helped him to build him back to his optimal form and he brings our team to completely different level, despite being so young - he is a fighter and in my opinion one of the most important players of the young generations of players in Slovenian football. It is extremely rare to find such quality and maturity in Center-back at the age of 22

Georgiev and Carole presented themselves in the best way possible to the home crowd - both of them are young and with fantastic qualities. We've missed Dino Stancic, Berahino is still working on his fitness, Bandeira and Federico Rose are out due to long-term injuries, but it's good to have depth of the squad and other quality players who can contribute to our optimal performance.

We have grown a lot, but there are still many things we need to improve and build. 1 year ago today, we were bottom of the league and now we are at the top. It's for the second time this season we've reached the top - that shows that we have grown a lot. But it will be hard to keep it.

We are still not ready to claim the champion position, but if we continue to grow like this, who knows.

Last week we drew against Dravinja - another good team. Noone was happy with the draw and that just shows the higher standards and demands we have towards ourselves. But we need to be realistic also.

We are still not favourites for the top spots and we need to realize that in order to continue to grow and progress. This week was good for us, considering the other results, but negative results will come at some point - it's part of the process. We just need to stick to our long-term goal and not allowing any crisis to his us from outside.