Fleetwood Town boss Joey Barton spoke to the media following his sides 4-1 defeat to Wycombe at Highbury Stadium on Friday night.
Here’s what the gaffer had to say:
On the game…
“Look, that’s football. I’m as disappointed as anybody because you want to win football matches and I care deeply about the club and the players at the football club.
“Obviously it’s a fantastic opportunity for us to be in the play-offs, and it’s a huge achievement for us. It’s not the way we wanted it to pan out, but that’s life, that’s football. Nobody is dead, we’ll be back, we will be strong.
“There’s a lot of madness going on in the world right now and we’ve got to not lose sight of reality. We are desperately disappointed, but trust me, we will be feeling that result certainly until the game kicks off on Monday night. Things attempt to test you in this life and I’m only at the start of my managerial career – I certainly hope I never experience a 45 minutes, 90 minutes like that again.
“We will be back. It’s a test of our character and we have got to climb up off the canvas, probably even underneath the canvas on Monday. We’ve got to get ourselves in a position to win the game, first and foremost, with enough time on the clock.
“Who knows what can happen.”
On the red cards…
“I think Paddy’s [Madden] shirt was pulled, whether that’s enough to put him on the ground or not, I’m not sure – I’ll have to watch it back.
“You’re always disappointed when players get sent off.
“Lewie Coyle’s in real time, the ball just skidded away and he’s committed to the challenge. He’s not the type of player to do that, and I know every manager rolls that out when someone has been sent off for that kind of challenge.”
On the upcoming second leg…
“Look, them boys can’t let us down. You start a season and all you want is your players to give you everything week in, week out and you know there’s going to be weeks when they’re bad, and you know there’s going to be moments when they’re good, and you buy into what they’re about.
“But we believe, I’m telling you now we will go there believing and give it everything we have got. If we come up short, we come up short. We’ve still finished in the play-offs, we’ve still finished above Sunderland, Ipswich, and some big, big clubs to get this opportunity.
“We haven’t maximised it tonight, but Monday night we are still alive in this and whilst there’s a fight, you’ve got a chance.”