Manager Keith Hill spoke to Dale PlayerHD following his side’s 2-0 win over Doncaster Rovers at the Keepmoat Stadium…
A late Ian Henderson brace secured the points for Rochdale.
“Ian is a happy man,” said Hill.
“I think the wrestle was the first half and I was really pleased with the competitive nature of the first half, but I think we showed our football intelligence in the second half. I just thought it was a well-planned execution. The opposition are a good side and they’ll carry on winning games, there’s no question in my mind.
“If we go through a period of six, seven or eight games where we haven’t won then I’ve just got to hold my nerve and so have the players. In the last six games we’ve lost one – what’s all the panic about?
“Do people really want change? Do they want me to leave? I don’t get football sometimes. I want that continuity - I have continuity in my home life. I’m 25-years married next June and we’ve shared 24 Christmases together. I want that similar continuity with the players and this football club.”
Hill watched the first half from the gantry rather than the dug-out and he believes it was a necessary and worthwhile exercise.
“I think myself and the players have been put under too much scrutiny recently and too many questions have been asked.
“Even friends of mine, and I don’t want to insult anyone, but family are also questioning why Rochdale aren’t doing as well as they did last season. If I’m being honest with you, I went back and I looked at the history of the club over the last 15 years and it reassured me that I do know what I’m doing. It reassured me that we know what we’re doing and how to get a little bit of extra success.
“I needed to take the emotion out of the game so I went up in the gantry. I had to see what was really going on because on DVD it’s difficult. Sometimes you’re assessing and evaluating at half time through emotion, so I tried to take myself away from that and I think I used that to good effect at half time.
“I’m an emotional assessor and if I play out my emotions to the players at half-time then I think it’s over kill - the players keep getting the same messages on a different matchday. I just wanted to make sure that I was right in my de-brief at half-time and be a little bit more non-emotional and just get the criteria across. I think I delivered better precision at half-time than I had done in recent weeks.
“As a Manager you need to be ticking over three point situations. I can belly ache about the resources and the history but I need three points. I wanted to do it, I’ve wanted to do it in previous weeks and I’ve just got to trust myself to do it on a regular basis. Regardless of the score-line, I would have stayed up there for the duration of the 45 minutes to make sure I was correct in what I wanted to achieve at half-time.”
The full interview is on Dale PlayerHD.