Interim head coach Simon Wiles spoke to the media after his side narrowly lost out to Oxford United 1-0 away at the Kassam Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
With less than ten minutes played, Charlie Mulgrew saw himself dismissed from the pitch after a last-ditch tackle saw Fleetwood down to ten men for the remainder of the match. Town played valiantly throughout with backs against the wall for some parts of it, but Town couldn’t quite find the equalising goal despite their best efforts.
Here’s what he had to say:
On the match…
“We gave the message to the players at half-time to be aggressive and to stay in the game as long as they can, we told them to be difficult to break down and to frustrate Oxford. We were coming up against a team who have won eight on the spin, so we knew it was going to be difficult.
“With going a man down, we knew we would be a bit more open, but I think at one stage there was players putting their bodies on the line, it was excellent determination and what we’re about as a football club.
“There were important moments during the game where we managed to shake them off where when it was still only 1-0, we were still in the game where we thought we could try and nick a point away from home.”
“Despite going one down I thought the conduct of the players was excellent and we had a good shape which is what I thought was good, but we were waiting for that one chance for us as there was a couple of half-chances which didn’t fall for us nicely enough.
On his message to the players…
“I told the boys to get their heads up, they have given absolutely everything for us in the second half, as well as the first. As soon as we can iron the tweaks out and find out what formation works on the pitch, they understand the messages really well and we can start stopping teams from getting through us.
“Harrison Holgate was waiting in the wings for his opportunities and the way he found his feet in the game I thought he did really well- we gave him a couple of bits of detail at half-time, his response in the second half was good, he stayed composed and he was competing with a really good centre-forward.
“From today’s result I couldn’t be any happier with the ways they conducted themselves in the second half but unfortunately we’ve been beaten.”