Head coach Scott Brown spoke to the media after his side picked up a point on the road after drawing their clash against Oxford United on Tuesday evening.
Carlos Mendes Gomes carried on his recent run of form as he managed to put Town ahead just 65 seconds into the game with an acrobatic finish, but the home side came back into the game after the break as substitute Gatlin O’Donkor levelled up the scoring meaning both sides would take a point from the game.
Here’s what the gaffer had to say after the game:
On looking at the overall performance…
“I thought our game plan worked well in the first half; we started out sharp and went a bit more direct than we are probably used to, but we had a good structure behind the ball, applied good pressure in the middle of the park, and pushed them out wide.
“They didn’t have many chances in the first half, and I felt the only thing we were going to struggle with this evening was set plays. That came to haunt us in the first five minutes of the second half as we didn’t get tight enough and allowed people to get into space.
“It was a great start, especially away from home, as we managed to silence the crowd – they’ve got a great fan base and stadium so that benefitted us hugely. We will improve on that as we’ve got a couple of days now and the week after the FA Cup game to work on that.”
On the shift put in by the squad…
“I thought we could have been better with the ball in the first half, the game plan was to sit in behind them and let the two centre-halves have the ball. We could cause them some problems from here as we could play it through the middle, which worked well.
“It’s a hard shift to do that for 90 minutes. When you get the ball, you need to make two or three passes to give you that chance to catch your breath. If we play one ball forward and it comes back, it feels like the Alamo, it just keeps on coming. The first half for us was successful, but there are always improvements.
“You always want to be in games, and we were always in the game today. We kept on attacking until the 98th minute there as you always have a chance of scoring a goal and could potentially steal three points at the end, which would have been fantastic away from home.”
On the upcoming FA Cup clash on Saturday…
“The FA Cup is a big one for us; we will make sure that the team is ready as they are off tomorrow, will have a recovery session after that, and will be on the grass on Friday morning. It’s important to us, especially with it being a home tie as well because getting to the next round would be a huge bonus for the club.
“They are used to an astroturf pitch at home so hopefully, our pitch is in the same condition as it has been in the last few weeks as we will try to play football and dominate the ball. We’ve watched some of their games and we know they will cause us problems on the break.
“If you can make it to the Third Round, it’s huge for anyone as it’s all about money. You have to make sure it’s not just the Chairman’s money that is coming in, we have to bring some in as well.”