A poor performance but Duff calls for perspective after defeat at Crawley
JORDAN Maguire-drew’s second-half goal condemned Cheltenham Town to a 1-0 defeat at Crawley Town on Friday night.
The substitute finished well inside the bottom left corner after a pass from ex-robins loanee Tom Nichols in the 77th minute.
Liam Sercombe hit the bar with a chipped effort in the 73rd minute, but Josh Griffiths did well to deny Nichols, who raced through after a misplaced backpass in the 51st minute.
Cheltenham could not find a way through and they missed an opportunity to stretch their lead at the top of the table.
Instead, they were knocked off the top on Saturday when Cambridge won at Newport, and fourth-placed Morecambe cut the gap to the Robins to three points.
“I didn’t think we were great tonight,” admitted manager Michael Duff.
“We have hit the crossbar a couple of times and had a good chance at the end.
“We had a really good chance when I thought Conor Thomas could have scored before it actually hit the crossbar and I am not sure what happened there.
“It didn’t look like us tonight and we were wide open at times.
“We turned it into a basketball game, which again is unlike us. We didn’t deserve to win the game, I know that.
“We didn’t do any part of the game well. We didn’t fight, look organised, have a shape or pass the ball.
“You are going to struggle to win a game of football when you don’t do any part of the game right.
“We’re disappointed. You need to have a little bit of perspective.
“We were poor. Move onto the next one. Five left to go.
“There has to be a bit of perspective and we have to recognise that we weren’t good enough, pick the bones out of why we weren’t good enough and get back to what we do well.”
Duff said he felt that some of his players did not take enough responsibility.
“You have to take the bull by the horns sometimes,” he said.
“There were four or five players today who just looked a bit frightened to say, ‘I’ll take it, I’ll take responsibility and I’ll make a difference.’
“That’s not easy. You have to give the opposition credit sometimes and I thought Tom Nichols was excellent.
“He bullied our back three and Conor (Thomas), that back diamond.
“He knocked them over and (Ashley) Nadesan ran in behind, but we were sloppy. As poor as we were, Crawley were good.
“People will dress it up as this or that, but we’ve lost a game of football.
“We’ve just taken 19 points from 10 games before today. If that’s feeling the pressure, I’ll take that for the next five games.”
Duff is keen for his players to ignore what he calls the “outside noise” and focus on the job in hand.
“Players can’t get obsessed with outside noise,” he said.
“If we’d won tonight, people would have said that’s it we’re promoted, but we wouldn’t have been.
“I’ve said it for the last three or four weeks, the outside noise, with supporters emotional because they are not here and they can’t support, they’ll be up and down.
“We’ve taken it a game at a time and there’s a reason we are where we are.
“We have not battered the players when we’ve lost, or told them they are the best in the world when we’ve won. You have to just try and do it again.
“Do I think the pressure is getting to the players? No. It was a poor performance.
“I didn’t think people got into positions properly. People were happy to stand half up against their man rather than making a proper angle and make the man make a decision.
“Their two were marking our three in the middle of the pitch because we didn’t work the ball well enough.
“I told the players, tactics, formations, technical ability, all that sort of thing, if you don’t scrap and win first contacts and knockdowns well enough, you have no chance of giving yourself a chance to win a game and that’s what we didn’t do.
“It was a good goal and they had numerous chances and could have scored before they did.
“Josh (Griffiths) has kept us in the game and given us a chance of nicking something at the end with Rags’ (Charlie Raglan) chance, but we’ll dust ourselves down and go again.”
Crawley Town: Morris; Davies, Tunnicliffe, Mcnerney, Tsaroulla; Matthews (Craig 86), Powell, Hessenthaler, Tilley (Maguire-drew 68); Nichols, Nadesan. Subs not used: Nelson, Sesay, Rodari, Wright.
Cheltenham Town: Griffiths; Raglan, Tozer, Long; Blair, Thomas (Azaz 81), Sercombe, Wright (Chapman 70), Hussey; May (Smith 70), Williams (Vassilev 81). Subs not used: Flinders, Lloyd, Freestone.
We didn’t do any part of the game well. We didn’t fight, look organised, have a shape or pass the ball
Cheltenham Town manager Michael Duff