Stephenson Pleased With Nelson Showing

Assistant manager Paul Stephenson has said he was very happy with the performance of the team in yesterday’s two one victory over Nelson.

Two goals from midfielder Will Hatfield gave us the victory as we’d battled back from a goal behind which did come against the run of play, but the margin of victory could’ve been a lot larger owing to the chances we had and the form of their goalkeeper.

Speaking to the Official Site following the game, our attacking display on the day was what really pleased him.

‘I’m really delighted with some of the attacking play. That’s stuff we can really refine over the next few weeks. I felt at times we just didn’t take the care with the final pass or the run was a bit ill timed but I think if we can get those bits a bit better and get back to being a solid unit like we were last year and add a few bodies then we should be ready for that first game against Southend.’

Going on to say that he thought there were some terrific passages of play in the opening 45 minutes, he was obviously disappointed to see us go behind because we were really in control and dominating play and could’ve/should’ve maybe been four or five up in the first period, but we gave ourselves a task by falling behind.

‘We switched off at the back for their goal which is disappointing, we took a bit of a risk and it didn’t pay off. We tried to play offside and sometimes they go against you but once again we reacted well.’

As well as talking about how we reacted in the right way, he also credits the mental strength of the team and their patience especially for keeping going and waiting for the opportunities to arise given most of what we threw at them didn’t come off – it would’ve been easy to think it was going to be one of those days.

‘I thought we showed great patience with the ball and we had to because they weren’t particularly coming out and pressing and we got our rewards in the end. Even in the second half we had chances, even with lots of changes which on reflection were probably too many. You live and learn something by doing these things.’

An experience for him and a good lesson maybe, but it is pre season, it’s experience for players and it’s more minutes under their belts in a game where the result isn’t actually important, so he shouldn’t worry about that.