Head Coach Simon Grayson spoke to the press after Tuesday night’s 3-1 defeat to Oxford United at the Kassam Stadium in Sky Bet League One.
First-half goals from Luke McNally, Cameron Brannagan saw the visitors take an early lead. Jay Matete pulled one back for Town just before the break, but Nathan Holland’s second-half strike was enough to secure all three points for the hosts.
Here’s what Grayson had to say:
On the game…
“We started the game really poorly. We did a lot of work yesterday on how we wanted to play and had team meetings this morning about the threats that Oxford have got and regardless of all the Covid problems, they had a strong team out.
“They’ve got some good attacking players, but we knew we had to try and nullify them and get tight to them but within 10 minutes we’re two-nil down. One from a set-piece which we should do better with, somebody shouldn’t get a free header in the box and then somebody runs off with one of the midfield players and before you know it, you’re two-nil down.
“What I will say about the players is that they dug deep and got back into the game and responded in the positive manner that we needed to and showed some character and what we’re capable of doing. The biggest disappointment is at 2-1 we’re on the front foot and we allow a player to run at us and before you know it, you’re 3-1 down.”
On the players…
“We work hard on the training pitch. I’ll never question the player's attitude because they work really hard and keep going but some of the decision-making is not good enough and we have to eradicate these mistakes. It’s tough for us.
“We’ve got to dig deep; we’ve got to come out and we’ve got to put to bed tonight, and we learn from it and move onto Saturday because we’ve got to eradicate mistakes and make sure we come out fighting.
“If we start feeling sorry for ourselves, we’re going to get cut adrift of the teams above us, but we’ve got a lot in that dressing room, but we need to put it together over 90 minutes. With the ball, we look like a decent team but there are two parts to the game. We can’t give so many goals away.”