Hill happy with
KEITH Hill was delighted with the manner in which his side went about their FA Cup second round win at Slough on Monday.
Dale progressed to a third-round tie against Doncaster next month after a convincing 4-0 win at Arbour Park.
The home side had their moments – but Dale had more and made the most of theirs with finishes from Calvin Andrew, Callum Camps, Ian Henderson and Matt Done.
“Regardless of who the opponents are, the opposition will get opportunities, whether it’s from mistakes or their creativity, and we knew that we’d have to deal with them creating opportunities, which we did,” said Hill.
“We created more opportunities than they did. The second goal was the conviction that we needed to make sure that last 20 minutes or so weren’t a potential danger.
“We dealt with their potential danger – there were one or two near misses but there weren’t too many opportunities that worried or affected Josh Lillis, and I thought we dealt with the situation very well.”
The Southern Premier League side gave a very good account of themselves in front of the BT Sport cameras, and Hill was impressed with the way they played.
“I like the way Slough play and their style. They’re non-league but they’re not a typical nonleague side. There are no real old journeymen, they’re not very direct and they’re very effective at times in the way that they do things. I thought their goalkeeper’s distribution was amazing, and fair credit to them. I think they’ve got very good players, who play with a certain a style, but I just think we were better than them, and that’s no discredit to the opposition. It was a test for us but it’s a test that we’ve come through again.”
There were one or two aspects of Dale’s performance Hill felt could be improved on, despite his general satisfaction with the display and the result.
“I thought we could have dealt with controlling the game a bit better.
“In the first half our midfield players were too deep, receiving the ball off the back four in negative areas of the pitch which allowed them to regroup in two banks of four, wheras I wanted us to play quicker, maybe give the ball away on the first pass but make sure we regained the ball – second ball regains – and play facing their goal but higher up the pitch and penetrate their perceived weaknesses.”
Andrew picked up BT Sports’ Man of the Match after an impressive display in which he scored the opener and set up two more two while also proving a useful asset in defence.
“Calvin has been excellent playing down the centre of the pitch,” said Hill. “Calvin is playing that target man number nine very well at this moment in time.”
‘It was a test for us but it’s a test that we’ve come through’