Despite taking the lead within the first minute at AFC Telford’s New Bucks Head, the under-23s succumbed to a 2-1 loss to Reading and the Wolves head coach believes it was due to the visitors’ hunger in the second 45 minutes.
On Friday night’s defeat
“I thought we were good in spells in the first half and we showed some good control. It was nice to get an early goal, but it was cancelled out almost immediately, so it was like being back to 0-0.
“But we recovered from that and then grew into the game. I was quite pleased with the first half performance, there was only a couple of things that I thought we needed to tweak and improve on, but I was relatively pleased.
“Then the second half, I didn’t really see that performance coming. I thought we were OK in the first minute or two and then I thought Reading began to dominate.
“I’m frustrated and a bit disappointed for the lads. In the second half, as a group, we were off it – which I can’t level at them much this season as for most of the 20 games we’ve played they’ve been excellent and very consistent – but we had an off 45 minutes.”
On Reading’s comeback
“Reading have got some good players, I said this before the game. They’ve got good players, they’re well coached and they’re obviously at the top of the league for a reason and we knew it was going to be difficult.
“They showed us respect, they matched us up with their formation. They’ve looked at us and respected us as a team, but then they played the shape better than us in the second half.
“But I think it was an element of them being good and us dropping off it in the second half, because I thought we edged it in the first half.”
On Ryan Giles’ performance
“He is always a threat going down that left wing. His pace is his strength, he gets crosses in the box, getting at the opposition and being positive, but I don’t think we got many first or second contacts on the ball off the end of his crosses.
“Whether we didn’t get the numbers in the box, or what, but that was frustrating because he was the big threat for us and if we were going to create something in that second half it would have been through him.”
On bouncing back
“As coaches we would all like to know why there is a drop off in performance. I wish I knew, and we will analyse the game and look at why, but to me it looked like Reading were just hungrier and, I hate to say it, but I think they outworked us in the second half – as well as being technically better.
“We’ve got to learn from that and improve, but we’ve got a week-and-a-half now to recover and look ahead to the next game and try to put it right.”
