Manager Keith Hill on Dale’s 2-2 draw with Northampton Town at the Crown Oil Arena…
“I was really happy with the majority of the performance but it’s chaotic at the end,” said Hill.
“The psychology of a player is all about confidence and it’s easy when you’re winning games, but you find out about players in situations like this.
“The performance was more like what I expect from us but we were punished by two major mistakes, and we should have been punished for three – we should have lost the game, to be honest.
“The game hasn’t been taken away from us by the opposition, they’re mistakes, and that’s situation that we’re in.
“It’s hard to accept but you’ve got to be very forgiving, and you’ve got to make sure that you fight on. I believe there’s a fighting intent, there’s an energy and a determination to win, and it’s about making sure that we continue to try and stick to task and hopefully things will come good.”
He continued: “The major incident in this game, which led to us drawing, is their first goal. It made us probably look at ourselves in the mirror and think ‘here we go again’ but we’ve got to get over that type of psychology and you’ve got to love the players even more. Everyone at the football club has got to love the players even more.
“There’s disappointment, and you’ve got accept that as a manager, as a player and as supporter. But you can’t be too hard on players when they’re giving everything, and they have given everything tonight - they’re soul destroyed in there. They know they’ve thrown the game away and it’s times like that, that makes you stronger.
“The players have just got to go and play relaxed and try to enjoy being on the football pitch again, instead of the pressures of the game.
“I thought they played well tonight. We probably should have won it, but equally so, we could have lost it, and that’s the rollercoaster of our season so far.
“If we put too much pressure on the players, then they’ll fail and you’ll get a situation where it becomes irretrievable. But at this moment in time, I believe that we’re still a work in progress with a new group of players and we’ll come good.”
Watch the full interview on iFollow.