Manager Keith Hill says there are a lot of positives he can take from Saturday’s League One fixture against Peterborough United.
Rochdale rallied and put in a spirit performance at the ABAX Stadium, and despite the score-line, deserved at least a point from the game.
“We’ve been conceding a lot of goals and confidence is at a minimum but hopefully there will be a positive bounce now,” said Hill in his post-match interview.
“I can galvanise and I can get something out of that game when I look at the players I’m getting in. Overall, I’m happy with the performance, the performance of some players and the way that the players are growing.
“We’re playing an 18 game season now, 19 including today, and we’ve got to make sure that we come up with a battleplan like we did last season, which we have done. Last season we had 16 games left and were 12 points adrift. We know that psychologically it’s going to be difficult for us a team, but we’ve done it before.
“I looked at that game today and there are a lot of things that are registering positively in my brain. It’s a total contradiction to the Doncaster game, for example. I’m pleased looking at the foundations that I’m putting back in place to try and carry us through an 18 game season to retain our League One status. I’m disappointed with the result by I’m happy with the performance.”
He continued: “We left ourselves a little bit vulnerable to the counterattack [in the second half]. When they’ve got the players that they have on the pitch, they can carry the ball well and are obviously a goal scoring threat.
“But with the score-line at 1-0 at half-time, we tried our best to get something from the game and it was a spirited performance. We’ve got a lot out of the game going forward into next week, as we plan for the next game.
“I’m not stood here doom and gloom. You have to learn with respect to making sure that you don’t overreact or underreact. You’ve got to retain your vision and your clarity and what it is you’re trying to achieve, and we’re trying to achieve our League One status. We’ve got to remember what we did last season and all the good things about it, as well as what we’re trying to do now on recruitment to make us better every mini-season. The mini-season that we’re having is game by game by game.
“I thought we could have got something from the game today and although we didn’t, I’ve got a lot of other things from the game except from the result. We didn’t give up today and that gives me a lot of encouragement going into the final 18 games of the season.
“There has got to be a composure to everything that we do and not a knee-jerk reaction, and any reaction has to be made after the last kick of the last game, not now after Peterborough having lost our fourth game on the bounce.”
Watch the full interview on iFollow.