Steve Bould had mixed emotions following our 3-1 win over Blackburn Rovers on Friday night.
Trae Coyle, Zech Medley and Tyreece John-Jules fired us into a commanding first-half lead, but we failed to kick on in the second 45 and allowed the visitors to pull one back.
We spoke to our head coach after the final whistle - and this is what he said:
on the performance…
The performance in the first half was okay. We transitioned very quickly, scored a couple of good goals, but they had a lot of the ball, a lot of shots and in the second half I was really disappointed, actually. I thought there was very little quality anywhere on the pitch and we let them back in the game. We missed the chance of another clean sheet, which is disappointing, but the biggest disappointment was the performance. It’s good to get a win, of course, and in the first half there was some good performers. I thought Nathan [Tormey] and Emile [Smith Rowe] played well and it was actually a good night for Dinos [Mavropanos], but there was a lot of, certainly in the second half, poor quality.
on the lessons learnt…
I think the learning curve is that you can’t come out at half time three-nil up and think the game’s over and done. Had they had scored earlier, I think we would have had a few major problems. Maybe I’m being a little bit harsh but the second half was disappointing.
on the attacking quality within the side…
I think with Emile, Nathan, Trae and Tyreece we have a very talented and strong front line. I think once Emile came off, the game died a little bit which is a disappointment, so it is a great win at this level but the performance wasn’t to the standard that we’re looking at.
on the depth in the squad…
It gives us competition and I think that’s what we’ve lacked a little bit of that for the most part because we’ve had a few injuries. It’s nice to have competition and it’s nice for the lads who don’t play so often to get games. It just shows that the level has to keep going up.
on Zech Medley’s performance…
I thought he did okay because he hasn’t played for a long time, and it’s been tough because we’ve had Dinos dropping in from the first team and he’s had to play, so there’s been one spot for five players, so it’s been extremely difficult. He’s trained very well and hopefully over the coming months he gets a lot more games in and let’s hope he can turn into the player we hope he can be.
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