Liam Rosenior praised returning duo Cole Palmer and Reece James – and provided updates on the fitness of Tosin and Estevao after the win over Brentford.
Goals from Joao Pedro and Palmer handed Rosenior a 2-0 win in his first Premier League game in charge of the Blues.
And Rosenior hailed the efforts of Palmer and James, who missed the Carabao Cup tie with Arsenal earlier this week through injury.
“Cole, if you watch the last 15 minutes of the game and you watch the energy he puts into his press and his running for the team, I thought he was outstanding,” Rosenior said.
“It’s impossible for any player or any team to be magnificent with the ball in every game, but you can still find a way to win. The other thing I would say about Cole and Reece [James] as well, they haven’t trained. They’ve had no training time because they put themselves up.
“I couldn’t play them against Arsenal. I’m so proud of them because they put themselves up and they ran themselves into the ground. They’ve had no training time with the knocks they picked up, which shows me a fantastic attitude and the more games and the more training sessions they get now, the better they’ll perform.”
Defender Tosin was forced off in the second half but Rosenior is optimistic that it is not a serious problem.
“He said he felt something in his hamstring,” Rosenior said. “I don’t know if it’s serious. He said it felt better afterwards. But at the moment, I’ve got a really, really good bench that I trust and Wes [Fofana] is an outstanding player and I brought him on to help the team.”
Estevao, meanwhile, missed out completely through illness with Rosenior revealing that several members of his squad are still struggling with a virus.
“Yeah, he was ill,” Rosenior said. “It’s running through the squad. There were a few, I won’t say who, but there were a couple of players playing today who were complaining about their chests.
“They put in a magnificent effort. I felt that’s why we weren’t good with the ball. I won’t give you names, it’s not right for me to do that, but I’m so happy with the attitude of the group to get through this game.
“I’m just working day-to-day. So, for example, the night of the Arsenal game, Liam [Delap] was ill. Yesterday late, Estevao, we found out, had a temperature and a fever. We just have to be really adaptable and adjust the way that we work.”