Beattie’s still on the hunt for first win

ASSISTANT manager Neil Howarth pointed to the character in the Cheltenham Town dressing room as they ground out their first League Two win of the season at Accrington.

Both teams went into the match searching for their opening three-point haul of the campaign and Jason Taylor’s 71st minute goal was enough to separate the sides during a wholly forgettable encounter.

Cheltenham made three changes in a bid to improve their fortunes after a 3-1 home defeat by Plymouth Argyle a week earlier and Howarth believed they deserved the spoils at the Crown Ground.

“To bounce back from a poor performance after a long hard week with some good training sessions and in-depth meetings to work out what went wrong last week is particularly pleasing,” he said.

“We did not overreact and there were some good bits from last week, but we’ve got the allimportant first victory.”

Cheltenham switched from a traditional 4-4-2 to a diamond midfield, with Taylor sitting in front of the back four and the move paid dividends as they stopped the goals leaking in.

“We went narrow in midfield with Jason Taylor back in the side because he’s a good organiser and a tough, defensive midfielder who popped up with the winning goal and I thought that was fitting,” Howarth said.“The formation worked well and it’s something we have been talking about for seasons, trying to work out what shape to go with.

“After half-time we were in control and showing bits of the football we can play. The goal was well timed and with the second half performance I thought we thoroughly deserved the win.”

James Beattie is still waiting for his first League Two victory as Accrington boss and he admitted his team were not anywhere near good enough.

“It’s there to see how we lost it and I don’t think either side played particularly well,” Beattie said.“I think we deserved a point, but we didn’t play well and we weren’t up to speed for one reason or another. “We were determined to get a clean sheet and I thought in view of the game we deserved that, but our forward play didn’t warrant a goal.”

Cheltenham’s goal came from a free-kick by Matt Richards after a foul was given against Peter Murphy for a challenge on Craig Braham-Barrett.

Beattie added: “I have made a promise to myself that the incident is gone now and I can’t do anything about it.

“There were 94 other minutes when we could have affected it.” To comment on this match go to http://boards.footymad.net/