Duff demands his players ‘reset’ after each goal

CHELTENHAM Town boss Michael Duff has urged his players to have a mental reset each time they concede a goal and avoid the sort of quickfire doubles that have cost them at both Milton Keynes Dons and Wycombe recently, writes Jon Palmer.

The Robins conceded twice in three first-half minutes to hand the Dons the initiative in Tuesday’s 3-1 reverse, while they let in three in the space of seven minutes and two more in two minutes during the 5-5 draw with Wycombe.

Duff, pictured, revealed: “We did address it after the (MK Dons) game and it’s something we spoke about a few weeks ago too.

“There needs to be a mental restart, whether a goal is scored for or against.

“It’s not always that easy, and I saw the Real Madrid game on Wednesday night, and Paris St Germain seemed to do the same thing, so it does happen to the best of them. It’s something we are aware of and hopefully it’ll prick their conscience and doesn’t happen again.

“Sometimes it’s dwelling on the past and you have to move on. There might be a bit of frustration, but that is never a good thing when there is a match going on, so hopefully we can press the reset button as soon as any restart happens.

“Look, we were beaten by a good team (on Tuersday). It was a strange game, a flat game. I didn’t think we were terrible, I didn’t think they were brilliant. They were slightly better than us and two minutes of madness killed us in the first half.

“I was disappointed to concede a goal from a corner, or a second phase corner. They don’t score from crosses and they’ve managed to do it against us, so that was particularly disappointing. To get done in one ball, straight down the middle, was poor, lack of concentration on our front. Other than that, there wasn’t much in the game.”

Cheltenham will endeavour to bounce back at Morecambe today, where victory could leave them 15 points clear of the relegation zone.