Last night’s League Cup defeat ended Nathan Haslam’s unbeaten start as Bay manager and it was clear that he was bitterly disappointed. “I’m gutted for the fans obviously, with the expectations with us being on a good run. We just haven’t turned up tonight, collectively 1 to 11. I can’t put my finger on it, things have been ticking but for whatever reason tonight that hasn’t happened; and yet we still only lost the game 3-2!
He was not convinced that the big occasion of a cup semi final may have affected the players. “A lot of people will think we’ve bottled it but there’s no reason for us to do that if we go out and play our own game and that’s what I’ve asked them to do. We weren’t thinking like we’ve been thinking in the previous games, we weren’t composed on the ball and when you’re like that against a team with footballers who do think, you get found out and that’s what happened to us tonight. I would have liked to see a bit more from our lads. If we’d put ourselves in positions where we didn’t have to fight for the ball, in spaces like they were, we’d have been ok, but for whatever reasons tonight we didn’t.
Benfield scored early on but Olly Martin quickly levelled the score. “After the equaliser I was comfortable, we weren’t ‘pinging’ it around like I knew we could but I still thought we were in the ascendency and the better team at that point without being really good with the ball. As the game went on they were finding spaces and it was really frustrating watching from the side because you can only tell them what to do. One thing we said before the game was that Dennis Knight is a dangerous player if you give him space. He’s got a wonderful left foot and his first goal showed that, his second was exquisite and the third he put in the top corner.”
“As I’ve said before, it’s about me learning about the lads and the lads learning about me and you always learn more from defeat than you do winning. That’s what we’ll do from today and we’ll go again Saturday and look about putting it right. We’ve got to bounce back.”
