Attacker gives his take on parity at the Park
Exeter City attacker David Wheeler was pleased with a point after going two goals down against Cambridge United at St James Park, but also felt that the Grecians need to start securing more maximums in the near future if they are to fulfil their promotion ambitions.Wheeler’s headed goal, which came just a couple of minutes before the final whistle, was the Grecians’ equaliser after Tom Nichols had also netted for the home side. Robbie Simpson and a Craig Woodman own-goal had put the visitors into the ascendency.
It felt like a just reward for an adventurous second-half that had seen Exeter shooting towards the Big Bank and piling on the pressure for a majority of it.
Yet while Wheeler was satisfied with a point given the context in which it came, he felt that the team needed to register a few more wins – and that even when they were trailing to the U’s, they still thought a win was achievable.
“It looks like a good point on the face of it, having been two-nil down,” said Wheeler. “But in the last ten minutes we just felt on the pitch like we were going to win.
“It shouldn’t be the case that we need to score three goals to win the game. It’s not good enough that we put ourselves in that situation too often.
“But we’re so threatening going forward – it’s obviously really exciting for us and it’s just a shame we didn’t nick it at the end.
“So it looks good when you look at it as a point gained out of nothing – but at the same time we need to start picking up wins because we need to get in amongst it now.
“The more games that go by, the more serious it is going to get. So it’d be nice to pick up some wins back-to-back fairly soon.”
Wheeler also picked out a number of his teammates for their performances which contributed towards the result.
Nichols grabbed his 11th goal of the season to instigate the comeback, half-time sub Christian Ribeiro provided energy in abundance down the right, and Alex Nicholls laid on a peach of a cross for Wheeler to head in with the game almost up.
“Tom is in really, really good form,” continued David. “His attitude is really good at the moment and he drives everyone else on, so I’m really pleased for him.
“Alex was good again on the right side, causing a lot of problems, and Ribs always gives you a lot of energy going forwards.
“So we’ve got the energy to break quickly on teams, which is good going into the last 20 or 30 minutes of games.
“It was a great cross from Alex for my goal – he worked really hard and he played in two different positions.
“Right at the end he made a really good run down the right-hand side, and you’re thinking, ‘where does he get the energy from?’ He was really good today.”
Wheeler’s goal came in trademark fashion – a gigantic leap in box, contested against the goalkeeper, which ended with the ball nestling in the net.
It bore resemblance to his equalising goal against York City earlier in the campaign, and he revealed that he always backs himself to win those balls.
“Believe it or not, they are my favourite ones when it should be the goalkeeper that is favourite to get there,” explained the City man.
“If he has to come off his line, I always jump early – I like when it’s in that little no man’s land because the defenders leave it and I can get there easier.”