Manager Brian Barry-Murphy reflects on Dale’s 2-1 defeat to Salford City in the Papa John’s Trophy on Tuesday evening…
“It’s a disappointing result for us. Overall, if I’m totally being honest, we didn’t play particularly well. As much as we defended our performance on Saturday and thought we were a little bit unlucky, I have no argument with tonight’s result. I thought we were lucky, if anything, to lose 2-1,” said the Boss. .
“Our attitude and our energy levels were fine, I just thought in terms of our quality and understanding of the game that we just didn’t match Salford. For whatever reason, whether it was physical or mental, we just couldn’t reach the heights that they could, and, as such, we have no excuses.
“If anything, the only thing I could say is that we were lucky to lose 2-1. We could have been behind in the first half. We scored a goal and defended resolutely, but we just didn’t display our personality at any stage of the game, and it was a very disappointing night in terms of that. We always focus on the performance and say on a weekly basis that we can’t always control the result, but tonight we just didn’t produce the performance and, as a result, we can have no arguments about the result.”
Jake Beesley scored his first goal for the Club in the match, having opened the scoring against the Ammies.
“I thought Jake did great. I thought that was one of the few benefits of tonight in terms of his goal scoring and his performance which was very satisfying. It’s great for him to get that monkey off his back and get his first goal which has been coming. It’s great that he can focus on the next game coming off the back of a goal.”
Kwadwo Baah made his first appearance for the first team since being sidelined with an injury in September.
“Kwadwo coming back into action was a positive. He has a lot of work to do because he’s behind in terms of fitness but to get him back on the pitch [is pleasing]. You saw a couple of brief moments where he looked as though he could cause serious problems, but he has a lot of work to do physically before he can be considered for a start or even a significant impact on the game.”
Watch the full interview on iFollow Dale.