Grecians boss reacts to Accrington win
EXETER CITY manager Paul Tisdale praised the resilience and application of his side in the Grecians' 2-1 over Accrington Stanley at St James Park.Goals from Tom Nichols and substitute Christian Ribeiro cancelled out Shay McCartan's early opener to hand City their first home win since of 2016.
"It was a very, very tough game against one of the best teams in the league," Paul said. "I have to say I was very impressed with them; they’ve got a real rhythm to the way they play, they pass extremely well and look after the ball well, so I’m not surprised at all at how well Accrington played. We’ve played games here in December where we’ve lost to Dagenham and Luton, where we’ve played really well and in my opinion we've been the better side. Today we played against a side who have outplayed us in places, and we’ve come away with a win. That’s football for you. I’m absolutely delighted that we’ve won and keeps our resurgence going. We’ve now picked up three results in a row and we’re off and running.
"It was a real winter football match today. The pitch was very muddy and very heavy. We had a lot of tired legs, and the difference in the amount of games the two sides had played in the weeks leading up to today was considerable. We had some tired legs today and we did extremely well; we stuck it out and it’s nice to be on the positive end of a defensive performance. We got there by scoring from a corner, which has happened against us many times. I’m just really happy we’ve got the result.
"I made the decision to rotate the squad the best I can over the last four matches, and in the three league games, we won two and we've drawn one, so that’s the beauty of having a large squad. We’ve got a large squad for the first time in a few years, but again, Accrington Stanley are a terrific team; we had to cope with them and we started really well. We were terrific for the first ten minutes, and there was no better way to start. We set up with an attacking formation. We adjusted at half-time and changed, but I think it was needed, and we ended up 4-4-1-1 and positionally, that gave us a better finish to the game.
"We’re pleased that we’ve got a week off now; it’s been one game after another. I’m not complaining; it’s been an exciting few weeks, but I’m now conscious of the fact we need to pull some performances and results together. We had performances in December and not got the results. We’ve just got to get some points on the board, and you never know, we could ease ourselves back into the play-offs.’’