Fleetwood head coach Joey Barton has given his reaction to his side’s narrow 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night.
The Cod Army hit the post in the first half through Peter Clarke, before Forest’s Tiago Silva scored the only goal of the game in the second half.
However, substitute Conor McAleny and Paddy Madden went agonisingly close in the second half, but it wasn’t to be for Barton’s side, who exit the competition.
See below Barton’s key quotes from his post-match interview, which is available on iFollow.
On the defeat…
“I’m really pleased with many aspects of it and I thought we showed our ability as a team. In the first half we were disciplined, the lads worked from the structure and went in at half-time level. We had a couple of chances from set plays and it was a tight affair.
“They obviously get the goal which we are disappointed about, but I thought our response to that was superb and it’s very rare that the opposition manager comes over and apologises for his team winning at the end.
“That’s rare but it’s not consolation to us because we are out the cup. It is a game we felt we could win; it was a game we came to win and unfortunately when chances present themselves against Championship opposition, you must take them.”
On taking that performance into the league…
“Yeah, look there’s no time for moping with our schedule – it’s Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday from here on and that’s just the way we want it. Obviously we are off the back of two wins in the league and it would have been nice to get a little bit of a cup run going and I think the lads did everything but put the ball in the back of the net.
“It’s a night that we will grow enormously from, because we’ve come to The City Ground which is a historic old stadium and showed we can play football with teams in the division above.
“We’ve got to learn now how to grind results out, we’ve got to learn how to take our chances because once we’ve done that, we are going to be a serious force.”
On the travelling Cod Army…
“I’m just gutted we couldn’t get a win for them, they’re at the end that we’ve attacked in the second half. They’ll go home disappointed that we didn’t win the game but they’ll be certainly buoyed by the performance, and they were singing throughout but I’m just gutted they couldn’t get a goal for them, but there’s many more exciting times ahead for Fleetwood Town.”