Manager Keith Hill reflects on Dale’s EFL Cup defeat to Championship side QPR at Loftus Road…
“I’m pretty pleased with a lot of the aspects of the game but emotionally you’re not happy to lose the game," Hill told Dale PlayerHD.
“We started well but then we started to give the ball away too much. It’s very difficult when you do that against a Championship side because they punish you.
“In general, I’m reasonably happy and proud of the way the players performed but it was just too big an ask.”
He continued: “You get good opportunities to play the right pass and to play through the thirds, but we struggled to do that a little bit. They’re a very good side and I think the first half substitute helped them. It was a difficult ask for us both physically and mentally because of the energy levels on a very humid evening, but there are no excuses.
“I thought we coped quite well and without being too over analytic, I think we’re still in a good position to have a good season with 42 league games left.”
AFC Wimbledon are the visitors to the Crown Oil Arena on Saturday, Dale’s seventh game in August. Hill says good recovery between now and the weekend is important.
“The lads need good recovery rest – they’ve had a lot of games already this month. I enjoyed the tempo of the game tonight and I know we can play at that tempo but we’ve got to concentrate that tempo better.
"We’ve played against some very, very good sides in August and we’ve performed quite well, but the underlying fact is that we’ve had bad results and I don’t like that.”
The full interview is on Dale PlayerHD.