Edmundo
30th August 2004, 22:25
Obviously disappointing. I don’t think 4-1 was a true reflection of the game. We got back into it at 2-1. The 1 decision we were certainly punished by was the centre forward went up for a challenge with Sam (Sodje) and left Sam on the floor. At the time we were playing 4-3-3. They crossed it to the far post and that was Sam’s man that scored. It looked to me as a foul. At 2-0 rather than go down and be weak, I asked the players to keep go forward and drive on and that’s what they did. You always leave yourself open to gaps and spaces. We picked the team today to be solid and stop chances on our goal on regular basis. That’s why we played with two solid blocks of 4. I was aware of the danger of Murray, that’s why I put Matty Somner on him to help Frampton. But that be said Scott Murray was a big danger today. He has not only scored two, but has set up one. But overall the players kept on going till the end, and the disappointment of Peterborough in my eyes is firmly put behind me and the players, as they kept having a go. At 0-0 Burton has had a header from 10 yards out which has flown over. And at 1-0 Burton has an empty goal from 30 yards and that goes in at 1-1. Those chances have to be taken when your on your travels. At the end of the last season we played solid just like today, and took our chances. At the moment we aren’t taking those chances – you have to take them. When defensively, you have to take those chances when they come along. It’s as simple as that.
It a concern that we are leaking goals. But I don’t think 4-1 was a true reflection of the result. We won’t come up against quality players like Scott Murray every week. He is an outstanding player in this division, and today he was outstanding. But we had opportunities at key moments in that game.
Jay Tabb is injured. He never trained yesterday. I couldn’t afford to take a chance with him. With the recent run they have had, it was obvious they would come out with fresh legs after a lot of criticism and obvious they would come out with lots of energy and desire and we had to match them in those departments with fresh legs and new faces in our team. We played so well at Ipswich, that’s why I changed the team around. Some of those lads haven’t done bad today, they haven’t done bad. Tabb has been called up to the Republic on Saturday, so I’ll have to look at that over the next 24 hours. If you’re going to play for your national side, you have to be fit to train and play for your club. If your not fit to train and play then you don’t go away. I will review that.
The players have to keep their own self belief. I believe in the players. They are good players that I have here. In all the games we have played, even at Peterborough when we had 4 good first half opportunities to score you have to take them. Maybe when we are away from home we have to be less cavalier like today. I decided to change it and play 3-4-3 with Burton Rankin and Salako up front and we got a bit of joy. Obviously we won’t play that every week, but when your 2-0 down I would rather go down with a fight rather than take off the centre forwards and hope to stop a massacre. I would rather see if we could get something out of it. After O’Connor’s goal we had good pressure, winning all our battles and challenges and passing it well. The team were playing very well. The ball was permanently in their half, until the decision went against Sam. These are painful moments and 9 times out of 10 that would have been a foul. The centre forward has obviously backed into Sam, as Sam has won all the challenges in the air previous to that.
It a concern that we are leaking goals. But I don’t think 4-1 was a true reflection of the result. We won’t come up against quality players like Scott Murray every week. He is an outstanding player in this division, and today he was outstanding. But we had opportunities at key moments in that game.
Jay Tabb is injured. He never trained yesterday. I couldn’t afford to take a chance with him. With the recent run they have had, it was obvious they would come out with fresh legs after a lot of criticism and obvious they would come out with lots of energy and desire and we had to match them in those departments with fresh legs and new faces in our team. We played so well at Ipswich, that’s why I changed the team around. Some of those lads haven’t done bad today, they haven’t done bad. Tabb has been called up to the Republic on Saturday, so I’ll have to look at that over the next 24 hours. If you’re going to play for your national side, you have to be fit to train and play for your club. If your not fit to train and play then you don’t go away. I will review that.
The players have to keep their own self belief. I believe in the players. They are good players that I have here. In all the games we have played, even at Peterborough when we had 4 good first half opportunities to score you have to take them. Maybe when we are away from home we have to be less cavalier like today. I decided to change it and play 3-4-3 with Burton Rankin and Salako up front and we got a bit of joy. Obviously we won’t play that every week, but when your 2-0 down I would rather go down with a fight rather than take off the centre forwards and hope to stop a massacre. I would rather see if we could get something out of it. After O’Connor’s goal we had good pressure, winning all our battles and challenges and passing it well. The team were playing very well. The ball was permanently in their half, until the decision went against Sam. These are painful moments and 9 times out of 10 that would have been a foul. The centre forward has obviously backed into Sam, as Sam has won all the challenges in the air previous to that.