Fleetwood Town captain Paul Coutts spoke to the media after the 2-1 loss away at Bolton Wanderers at the University of Bolton Stadium.
With Town having chances early in the first half, it was the Trotters’ who took the lead through Chris O’Grady after a mistake at the back, and striker partner Daryl Murphy added a second before half-time.
The Cod Army didn’t let the two goals affect their play and with numerous opportunities falling for them, it was Josh Morris who gave them a lifeline with five minutes to play. There was a great chance to equalise right at the death through Danny Andrew, but it wasn’t to be for the away side.
Below are the key points from Coutts’ post-match interview…
On the loss at Bolton…
“When you look back, we probably had majority of the possession and the better of the chances but we didn’t start the game well and with a couple of lapses in concentration, it cost us points.
“You can’t give teams at this level the chances we gave Bolton because you just get punished. We got what we deserved and that was nothing with the careless mistakes we away.
"Obviously you would like to have played them at the start of the season against their Under 18s, but that is just the way it goes sometimes. They have some experience in their team now, and those players know their way around how to wins games of football.
“Yes we have young players, and we all need to improve, but we need to do that as a group if we are going to achieve anything this season.”
On the chances Town created…
“We will also go out and created chances in front of goal, especially with the players we have at the top end of the pitch, but we need to keep clean sheets down at the other end if we want to get into the top two slots – which is our ambition.
“Lewie [Coyle] had two good efforts today, and to be fair to him, he maybe should score the second one but on a whole, the second half was more like us and him when he was getting in advance roles, getting in between their defenders.
“It was all us second half, and if we managed to score a bit earlier, the pressure might have tolled on them and we go away with something from the game.”
On the Cod Army’s away form…
“Our away form needs to pick up. We need to look at it this week and see what we are doing differently from our home form to our away. It is just basics and the manager [Joey Barton] briefed us on that, and today we didn’t do those well enough.
“As a player I have been through spells where our home form is better than it is away, and with other teams I have seen the opposite where the away form is better than the home.
“Coming back to today, the errors are there for everybody to see and as I said, we were told about the basics and they can quiet the home crowd early on, but we didn’t do that.”