Manager Keith Hill reflects on his side’s 1-0 defeat to Coventry City at the Crown Oil Arena…
“Their goal was a bit of mistake, but it was a wrestle. I expect more quality and better decision making but sometimes you’re scrambling and sometimes you’re battling, and we battled well,” said Hill.
“There are one or two players who needed to make better infield decisions today. I’m disappointed with the result, as you would be. We have to making sure that we saw at least a draw out of that game. We were trying to go for the win, but the save from their goalkeeper on Ian Henderson is a great save and it’s a match winning save.
“From a creative point of view, they created more than us but there was a lot of speculative shots on target. We’ve got to do better with the players that we’ve got on the pitch in creating more opportunities.
“The season hasn’t been decided by that result today and we’ve got to look forward to the 14 games that we have remaining. The players have got to express themselves a little bit better.
“Generally, I think we’re in good health and we’re defending quite well but I just need everybody to make better decisions throughout the course of 90 minutes. There are some great decisions being made and then some poor ones, too, on a regular basis. But that’s where we’re at and something we have to deal with, and if the players do deal with it, then we’ll get better results than we did today.”
He continued: “We were trying to get plays off the bench and onto the pitch, but we’ve again had to bring Ryan McLaughlin off in the latter stages of the game. He had cramp, so we’ve got to get him up to speed. He has played the best part of three games now so I’m expecting him, over the course of the next week/ 10 days, to be better prepared for the AFC Wimbledon game.
“We have to take more responsibility winning performance wise at home. We seem to be able to express ourselves a little bit better away from home, so we’ve got to take that on board and support our fans by giving them what they need, which is a little bit of sugar.
“It was the right thing to start Zach, but Zach just found himself quite a way away than we expected from match fitness perspective. He has been superb during the week and we wanted him to combine with Ian Henderson as an offensive number 10, if you like, but we just didn’t get it right and I thought we looked a little bit vulnerable.
“I thought we started the second half more on the front foot and we at least matched Coventry. I thought it was a very even contest that went in favour of Coventry. We can’t be too down about it. Looking back to December when there were players in and players out, we were losing comfortably and we couldn’t get a foot hold in the game. I think we’re getting a foot hold in the game now but it’s important that we become better decision makers.
“Generally, I’m not too displeased with the performance but the result is all that matters. We’ve got to do that little more to grind out at least positive result there today, and it would have been a positive draw. But, unfortunately, we’ve been punished by one small defensive mistake.”
Watch the full interview on iFollow.