Where did that performance come from?

It is a question the Chester FC faithful no doubt contemplated as they headed home happy for the first time in nine months.

As Marcus Bignots admits, just beating Maidenhead United in his first game in charge, and ending a winless home run stretching back 17 matches in all competitions to December, was all that mattered.

But it was the manner of the 2-0 victory that impressed the most.

Sure, the cloud hanging over the club had been lifted by Jon McCarthy's departure, however harsh that sounds, and sure, most supporters who made their way to the Swansway Chester Stadium last Saturday would have anticipated some sort of new manager bounce.

But, after just one training session with the players, few would have expected Bignot to have got the Blues performing just quite the way they did.

So, in his press conference ahead of this Saturday's trip to Eastleigh, the new boss was asked to explain how he made such an impact.

Bignot said: "We gave them a lot of information, but we had already done due diligence on the group, and we just felt with a tweak here and there, and a bit of structure and organisation, and giving them some roles and responsibilities, because there’s a lot of good, senior players in that group, and with the detail we can add, we were always confident we could get results out of this group of players.

The main stand rises as one at the end of a first home win in 2017

"The most pleasing thing was the result. The performance was great, that was the icing on the cake, but I would have taken a scrappy 1-0 with a goal going in off somebody's backside. Given time you'll see how we evolve and how we want to play, but you've probably already got an insight into that, sooner than what I imagined, but I think the supporters have seen how positive we're going to be and how hard we're going to work.

"The result was for the football club. Not so much for the players, but for the club in general, for people who work at the football club, and for the supporters, who are the most important people. To go that long without a home win draws on your patience as supporters. There were a lot of good performances but that's why I said the man of the match was the supporters. Going through what they've been through, and giving us that level of support, credit to them.

"You can draw confidence in a lot ways. If you give individual players roles and responsibility, give them a structure and organisation, and if they've got that desire to work hard, they can always draw on that confidence and that game plan and game management we've given them.

"People have seen the way we want to play football. We want to get on the ball and be positive with it. On the odd occasion we'll have some misplaced passes but it won't be for the want of being positive to get on the ball. That's why you'll see me encouraging the living daylights out of them on the sideline in terms of on the ball.

"They can't guarantee me they're going to be on their game on the ball week in, week out, but what they can guarantee me is their structure, organisation, roles and responsibilities and their desire off the ball. That has to be there week in, week out. That's the message I'll be delivering this Saturday. That mindset off the ball has to be the same again, and if it is, you'll spend more time on it, and then what you'll see is you’ll get a performance like Saturday's.

"The players were trying to express themselves (before I came). No footballer goes out there without trying to play to the best of his ability but I have saying: 'not only get into good positions to get on the ball, but when you lose it, get in a good position to win it back'. There’s a lot of detail in that but we just feel we've given that structure, that shape, that organisation, and right away from our first session we saw that belief. We want to get these players playing to their talent but you can’t play football without having structure."