Grecians boss reacts to Luton defeat
EXETER CITY manager Paul Tisdale was quick to praise his players’ willingness to attack despite an agonising 3-2 loss to Luton Town this afternoon.Having trailed 2-0 at half time, City fought back as goals from Tom Nichols and Alex Nicholls’s looked to be enough for a draw. It wasn't to be, however - veteran Paul Benson bundled in a controversial winner ten minutes into stoppage time to give his side all three points.
"If you judge the game by our play and willingness to attack, to take chances, dribble, cross and shoot, then we were we simply the only winners," Paul said. "But if you judge it by how many times the ball went in each team’s net, then we weren’t the winners. It’s very hard to take when you play as we did today. I think we played pretty well and it bodes well for the forthcoming games, but you’ve got to keep the ball out your net and we didn’t do that on three occasions.
"I think they were fortuitous with their first goal; it was against the run of play and it’s one of those penalties where it’s innocuous. Against the run of play we’re 2-0 down, but we came back, fought hard and there looked like there was only one winner in it. But unfortunately we managed to concede a soft goal in the last few seconds of the game.
"I had no view of the goal; you probably had ten times better view than me. The ball was in the back of the net whichever way you spin it and I’m more concerned to look at the thirty seconds that lead up to that point, the process towards that goal. That’s the only thing I can look back on; what the referee decides goes in I honestly don’t know. I couldn’t see from where I was, but at the end of the day, the ball was in the back of the net and it’s their winner."
The festive schedule is well and truly under way now, but the City boss insisted that that would never be an excuse for any drop in form.
"This is not abnormal and that’s what happens, it’s the league programme. The league and cup games, when you play one game, you’re onto the next, it’s whether you win, lose or draw you go towards the next game. You take the good points, you discuss the weaker elements of the game - and there weren’t many today - but you discuss them and you know you move on to the next.
"The players played in a manner with only one thing they wanted to do, just win the game. We contrived not to today, but we move to the next and it’s a simple process. That’s professional football - you play a game, win lose or draw, happy, sad, miserable – you move to the next and you try to re-create your good points. That’s what we’ll do next weekend."