A general point first of all, Joey, straight after a defeat, lots of positives for you today.
We showed a bit of resilience. Obviously, we’re disappointed we got beat and you never enjoy losing a game of football. But, I don’t think it’s through the effort of the players, it’s more due to the composure of the official.
It was a tale of two penalties. What did you make of the one that was awarded and what did you make of the one that wasn’t with Aaron?
I can’t tell the difference between the two of them. I actually think if anything, there is more contact from Rafferty on Azza, but we didn’t have the Fratton End shouting for it and people, I think, affected by the stadium.
When boys are part-time and not full-time, the full-time officials can be influenced by stadiums.
I felt the referee was really poor today for us. Every decision, he decided to give to them and I think it stems out of the nonsense from the manager and the assistant. I was in the stand and I could hear them trying to get Glenn Whelan sent off for a competitive tackle on the edge of the touchline.
They are screaming and jumping up and maybe it’s because they never played football and maybe that’s how you’re meant to behave, but you shouldn’t be screaming as an opposition manager to get a 91-cap international dismissed from the pitch when he has clearly made contact with the ball.
It is a foul, it probably is a yellow card.
Disappointed to lose today because we were in the ascendancy. I felt at 1-1 we were going to push on and I have to take the fall for it because I bring Jordy Rossiter and Lewis Gibson off the pitch because they haven’t played a lot of game time and I’m mindful of the war and the battle of a 46-game season.
I’ve said to you I’m five players short, so if I push them on and they get injured in the last part of the game, I’d have been disappointed.
We’re a work in progress. We’re far from our strongest. We didn’t hit our bootstraps until February last year, but if they are one of the top boys in the division and that’s Pompey and Fratton Park and all that, we’re going to be OK.
You started with a new formation and no doubt you worked on it. How did you think it went?
It was mix and match. What I felt it would do based on the components in there, it did, so I’m not surprised by anything I’ve seen enough to work through things. I need players in to work through it.
Today was a bit about me looking at a system, but without having the correct parts of it and I certainly felt a little bit of that in the first half and we’ve only practised it for a short period.
We played Barnsley on Tuesday night. We were off Wednesday, we were back Thursday. We practised it for less than an hour. We’ll keep practising but you can see the benefit of Luca Hoole at right-sided centre-half, Beefy as middle centre-back and Lewis Gibson, aged 20, 20 and 22. We’re going to build the rest of the unit out from there.
Whelo was unfortunate to come off because he got the yellow and they were baying for his blood and the next challenge I thought he was going to dismiss him because he was double giddy, the referee, and couldn’t wait to get involved with the crowd as the penalty showed.
Presumably it’s a blessing not having a midweek game. Are you confident of having new faces in for next Saturday?
Yeah, I don’t know how confident I am, we’re ticking in the window now but we’ll see what happens.
I imagine there will be some movement this week and I hope we don’t wait until the last day of the window to take them off the board. I’m hoping we can get at least two, maybe even more over the line.
But if not, I know I’m five short and I’ve got five to do and that’s on the back of no one going out. We might lose one or two as well and in that case, we might have to replace them.
We’ve got a bit of work to do in the market. We’ve got Shrewsbury at home in seven days and after that, we can bed the group in and start to make progress.
Proud of the lads today, proud our club today. We came here and took them on and they are a benchmark in terms of a big team in the division and it will only be a short period of time before we’re ahead of these. Just as we were at Fleetwood, we will be with Bristol Rovers.
Joey, do you think a couple of your players need the arrival of some fresh blood in the building to get them back to the form they showed last season?
Yeah, we’re short. We’ve lost three wingers in Elliot Anderson, Luke Thomas and Sam Nicholson and we haven’t really replaced any of them.
We’re short in that department and we’re fully aware of that and the owner is fully aware of that and we’re aware of that as a group.
Again, when you want quality, you’ve got to wait, you’ve got to be patient. Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, the wait will be worth it.
What was the shape? Out of possession, it looked like a 3-2-3-2, something along those lines. I know you have played back threes without wing-backs before but it seemed like you really focused on that central area to make it as narrow as possible.
You’re really good from a tactical aspect, so no doubt when you analyse the game back you’ll see what’s gone on, but I’m not going to tell you. You know I like to keep those things in house and let the opposition work it out.
It won’t take an awfully long period. It’s not rocket science.
There were a couple of tweaks. I played one system in the first half and we had to adjust that in the second half.
I will go back and watch the game, but I know 4-4-2, 4-5-1, 4-3-3. We know all them, it’s all been done and done really well, whether you want a Klopp version of it or a Guardiola version of it.
Whilst we haven’t got the components, I thought ‘Let’s chance it’. For us, we’ve always seen the first six games as an experiment and to come here and go ‘Let’s take them on and do something different’ takes balls from our group of players to try to implement it and they got back in the game.
A big decision goes against us at both ends of the pitch and we could be talking about something slightly different, but we’ve got work to do.
I want to build the most exciting attacking team Bristol Rovers has ever seen and to do that, like when you change a golf swing or lift a new weight or you try a new endeavour, there is a little bit of uncomfortableness in the first part of it. You have to be uncomfortable to get comfortable.
The only way you learn is by taking chances.
The one big difference from the Barnsley game was resilience. You still weren’t at your best but you stuck in the game and it gave you that chance when John forces the error for Aaron to tuck it away.
We didn’t create a lot and when you don’t have wingers in the team, you’re not going to. The only recognised winger we’ve got is Harry Anderson and he’s been playing most of his games at full-back.
He comes on wide right today and ends up playing left-back in a four because Lewis Gibson comes of the pitch and we tried to reshuffle it a little bit and I have to take the blame for that.
For me, it’s my fault. We go from a three to a four. I think the tie swings on that. They get on the outside and Harry, not being a defender, kicks through an area and their lad makes a meal of it and gets a pen. The rest of it is history from there.
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