Manager Brian Barry-Murphy reflects on Dale’s 2-0 defeat to Charlton Athletic at the Crown Oil Arena…
“The performance wasn’t as good as we have produced in the last five or six weeks,” said BBM.
“We’ve been in really good form and very happy with how we’ve been playing, but we met an opponent today who were better and stronger than us on the day.
“We seem to be really rocked by the early goal, which is unlike us, and we didn’t respond in the manner I’d hoped, but that can happen easily. They are a powerful team but we didn’t play with the same intensity that we have done in previous weeks. That was disappointing, but the lads have been amazing over a long period of time now and I think it’s very important that we bounce back on Tuesday night.
“We didn’t play well, any of us in the first, and as such, it became a difficult game when we were 2-0 down against a strong team, but from our point of view we didn’t reach the heights that we wanted to, so, like I said, it’s very important that we understand why and put that right on Tuesday.”
Captain Eoghan O’Connell who had been sidelined through injury since the start of January made a return to the team on Saturday and the Boss was pleased to welcome him back into the squad.
“He’s been a big miss for us but the lads have done really well in his absence. He has come back from a pretty serious injury in a really quick time because he’s a quick healer, but we just have to be careful about how we use him in the upcoming games. It might be difficult for him to go Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday in a short period of time but I’m glad to get him back.
“The squad is in a pretty good place in terms of having players fit, aside from a couple of obvious exceptions, so it’s just about getting that balance right in the upcoming games.”
Deadline day signings Conor Grant and Jack Vale made their Dale debuts in the game against the Addicks, coming on as second half substitutes.
“They’ve [the new players] have settled in really well.
"In the second half I was just trying to make as many offensive changes as possible to get as many attacking players on the pitch as we could.
“Ideally, Conor Shaughnessy would have got on as well, but even dropping Aaron Morley into centre-back is a pretty radical move and ideally not what I’d like to do, but I just felt as if we needed something to change the flow of the game and to try and give us some impetus. Aaron’s longer passing can be very beneficial there.”