Football We forced City into making a tactical change, claims McCann
PETERBOROUGH United manager Grant McCann believes he tactically outwitted Nigel Pearson on Saturday as the rock-bottom side left Ashton Gate with a draw.
The Posh were on top throughout the opening 45 minutes, and came close to opening the scoring when they hit the post with a strike from distance after half-an-hour.
The visitors, who are nine points adrift of safety, had nine shots in total during the first period, in which McCann believes his side should have been “three or 4-0 up.”
City centre-back Rob Atkinson heded the hosts in front just before the half-time whistle to make it two goals in two, before Pearson made a tactical decision to replace Robbie Cundy with Zak Vyner, pushing Alex Scott from a right wing-back position into the centre of midfield.
It led to a change of shape with City switching to a back four, a decision that McCann believes was forced after his tactics to get his forwards in behind paid off.
After the game, McCann said: “I thought we were so much in control of the first half. I could see that we were forcing Nigel into making a change.
“We changed the system today, we wanted to get their wing-backs against our full-backs and get Ricky (Jade-Jones) and Kwame (Poku) in behind and we did that really well in the first half and created so many opportunities.
“We should be three or 4-0 up but if you don’t take your chances in the Championship, you get punished.
“We have to show more calmness. I said to the boys at half-time that this is the Championship, you have to take those chances. We have to smell blood and, at the
minute, I don’t think we do. When we’re on top in a game, we don’t smell it.
“We had to score in that spell in the first half. We’re still working on that though and we are working to get better every day.”
Cundy particularly struggled during the first half as Peterborough piled on the pressure but Vyner’s cameo, his first since the 3-1 defeat at Swansea on February
13, perhaps suggested why he has found himself out of the side in the last two months.
Pearson was eager to stress that tactics had nothing to do with the performance, insisting it all came down to the mentality of his players.
He said: “You generate it (possession) by keeping the ball and we gave it away for fun whether in a three at the back or four at the back.
Four at the back with an extra man. Tactics have got nothing to do with today, they’ve scored a goal where they’ve launched the ball into the box, we don’t get the first header and we don’t clear it. Nothing to do with tactics.
“We’ve had plenty of situations where our quality into the box isn’t good enough, simple.
“Tactics have got nothing to do with it today”