Manager looks back on parity with Brewers
Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale felt that coming from behind to earn a score-draw with Burton Albion at St James Park represented a decent result for the Grecians.The Brewers had the opportunity to go level on points with League 2 leaders Wycombe with a win, while Exeter had the chance to enter a play-off position with three points.
In the end neither team quite got the result they wanted but it kept both of the sides ticking over as a result of a well-balanced game. It was a game of few clear-cut opportunities
It stretches Exeter’s unbeaten run in the league to eight games and Paul felt that it kept the momentum going.
“It’s a good point – it’s better than nothing and it keeps us moving forward,” said Paul.
“At the end of the season we’ll know how important it was. It has also taken two points off a competitor.
“We played with the ball and they played without the ball. They had control of the game by doing so – we made the passes but I thought they had control of the game and I wasn’t particularly pleased with how it was going.
“I know we played some nice passes but we had no productivity at the front of the pitch. We couldn’t find the forwards or they couldn’t be found – whichever is the major influence there I don’t quite know.
“They made it is very difficult for us and when your side doesn’t quite function as I would have wished – as we didn’t today – you have to ask yourself: is that down to our own play or is it down to their influence on us by playing so well.
“I think it’s somewhere in the middle. We draw a line and we’re happy with the point and we move on.”
Jacob Blyth had put the Brewers ahead on the hour mark – turning in a low cross from Alex MacDonald – but the scores were levelled just five minutes before the end of the game by a header by Christian Ribeiro.
It was Matt Grimes’ whipped corner from the left that allowed the City defender to attack the ball and score, but Paul felt there were a number of factors that also contributed.
“Matt put it on the mark today as he does very often,” he said. “It was nice for Christian Ribeiro to have some support with the run of Clinton Morrison and Scot Bennett – that’s the big difference.
“We’ve been a bit weak on attacking corners because of the numbers and the people we’ve got attacking the ball. If Christian is there they can pick him up and double-mark him, but today they had to pick up Clinton, Scot and David Wheeler and it just gave him the opportunity to attack it.
“It just shows that the details make all the difference. And David Noble did a great job of blocking the goalkeeper which we haven’t done enough of.
“All round it was a very good delivery, good positional play, good detail and a good finish.”