Be Tougher With a Lead

We play nice football, I’ve no problem with that, and if you want long ball tactics and big ugly players at both ends of the field, you’re not going to get it with Mark Kennedy, Michael Appleton, or anyone coming into the club. That is a fact. By the way, I recall people saying how they’d rather be Doncaster than us after they beat us 1-0 because they were resolute and fighting. I saw some say we needed to be more like Gillingham, strong and direct after they beat us at the Bank. How did that work out?

What I’d like is a bit savvier when we’re winning matches. Take the MK Dons game at Christmas; 2-0 up to 3-2 down is not acceptable, not when we were as good as they were that day. I did feel we were naive with a lead at times, not bringing a defender on for a striker late on, stuff like that. I don’t expect it every week, nor for us to sink back on 60 minutes, but when we went 2-1 up against Cheltenham in December, we had Robson and Roughan on the bench. Why not grab Draper, bring him off and stick a defender on? It would eat up a few seconds and perhaps knock their momentum.

It wasn’t every week, but when we do have a lead I hope we make more pragmatic decisions in the dying moments.