What’s your assessment of that, Dean?
I thought the better team won the game, no doubt about that. They are the best team in the division without a shadow of about, in my opinion.
I thought we started brightly in the first half. I thought we were well in the game. Daniel Bentley has had some saves to make.
We’ve come out in the second half and played more in their half of the pitch, more in their territory. We had some balls going into the box and it was difficult to get on the end of them. The second goal was the one that put the game to bed. We just made a change to Nahki Wells to really go for the game.
There’s no doubt that Hugill puts a forearm across Tommy Rowe’s face – not on purpose, I don’t think it was meant at all. Certainly Rowe goes down with a head injury. I’m not sure why the game wasn’t stopped.
But at the same time, we still have to look to defend it better and that second goal really killed it.
As you say though, they’re a very good side and the pressure was relentless at times. You probably weren’t able to get enough shots on goal were you?
No, we weren’t able to get anywhere near enough. The way that they play, they’re so expansive and move the ball, they make the pitch really big.
Having said that, when they turn it over, they can be quite open at times and we thought that was our moment and we just weren’t able to get that pass off, that first or second pass, to be able to get in. There were so many near misses.
From our point of view, that’s why we have to look to improve in the next one. Certainly on the weekend against Preston, we were very good, we moved the ball crisply and we passed it much better than we did tonight. That’s the standard that we have to get back to.
Palmer and Cantwell came together in the second half. That’s the kind of spirit you want, isn’t it?
I know they both got booked. I didn’t see Kasey do anything wrong really. Cantwell had hold of the ball which he obviously shouldn’t do and all Kasey did was shove him a little bit and obviously he went flying off the pitch. Kasey wanted to get the ball so he could play. I think the referee has to get involved and keep the game moving.
Hakeem Adelaken was probably as close as you got early on. If he could have just got on the end of that Palmer shot…
We started pretty brightly and we got into their final third but we just weren’t able to make enough to create enough chances. Hakeem’s gone to Tim Krul and it’s just spun wide of the post. We’ve lost to a top team tonight and we have to get ourselves ready for Millwall on Saturday.
