The manager's thoughts after 3-0 defeat
City manager Paul Tisdale believes the Grecians must improve their defensive capabilities if they are to bounce back from their disappointing 3-0 defeat to Northampton.
Tisdale saw his side miss a host of chances and has warned his players that they can’t expect to win games by needing scoring two or three goals.
“We can't rely on having to score two or three to get a result," Tisdale said. “I have no grudge to bear at all with the way we passed it and attacked, we played our game.
"It's about the goals we conceded today, more so than the goals we could have scored. We should've done better defensively.
“I expected their performance, I didn’t expect them to score three goals, or hoped they wouldn’t and we would but it was one of those days when we didn’t manage to.”
Despite the demoralising defeat Tisdale was satisfied with the attacking intent shown by his players and believes on a different day City could have got something out of the game.
Tisdale said: “Watching the game I still think we could have got a result today but essentially it’s down to goals and goals conceded and we certainly came on the wrong side of that.
“We played our game and Northampton played their game, we’ve played poorer than that and won but when your chasing a game there is that extra anxiety to put the ball away.”
Tisdale decided to focus on the goals that they conceded rather than the goals they failed to score. Jamie Cureton had a penalty claim turned down and John O’Flynn could have scored, with City registering nine shots on target.
The City manager said: “If you keep the ball out of your net the game is different, we’ve won four out of six away games, I’m not going to be to critical of the players at this point, we would have loved to have got a result and thought we could.
“We should have better defensively and I will have to look at it.”
Tisdale is confident his players can get back to winning ways and build on an impressive start to the season.
“There is a long way to go and I’m determined to make us an effective team over the next 30 games,” he added.