No place for DIY football when chips are down

ROCHDALE must stick to the gameplan when things are not going their way.

That was the message from boss Keith Hill after the 2-1 loss against Blackpool on Monday, when he felt some of the players lapsed into ‘DIY’ football.

“The first half could have gone either way, but then the game went their way with the first goal and the second goal seals the game,” said Hill.

“That’s what we’re going through and you’ve got to accept it. You’ve got to accept the result and move on, it’s as simple as that.

“When you go into a situation where you have to fight, you’ve got to know how to fight, so when we went 2-0 down it shouldn’t be DIY football.

“We’ve got to stick to the disciplines that will give you a positive place to build.

“It’s happening too regularly that when we go a goal behind we go DIY and become a victim of the state of play or the score line, but we’ve got make sure we stay in games.

“The players have got to learn quickly how to fight in this position and do better, because I thought the first half was relatively even.

“We didn’t start brightly in the second half which put us on the back foot and the result is the conclusion of a little bit of indecision.

“I just didn’t want the score line to go beyond retrievable from a confidence point of view.

“The players have got to find their own confidence and this is where bottoming out and looking at the league and thinking ‘we’ve been cut adrift’, hopefully we can get a positive bounce.

“You’ve got to accept the position that you are in and start responding to it, and that’s what I’m looking for from the players.”