‘Nailed on Penalty’ – Opposition Reaction From The Weekend’s Win Against Stockport County

October 28, 2024 Gary Lincoln City, Post Match Reaction 0

City got back to winning ways on Saturday afternoon with a very good performance against Stockport County, writes Kyle Fox.

Arguably the only thing missing was more goals from the Imps. Hatters’ boss Dave Challinor was not impressed with his side’s performance on the day and gave his thoughts in the post match interview.

It was a good performance overall from City, with some really good individual performances, which got the three points it deserved after going a goal behind again. It was a great way to bounce back from a disappointing second-half performance on Tuesday against Crawley. We were back to doing what we do best, pressing high, a threat from set pieces, and high intensity with some lovely passages of play thrown in there, too. It was also really great to see us start this way, with real intent on putting the previous two games behind us as quickly as possible.

I felt Stockport weren’t at their best but was still a tough opposition. They were a threat going forward and were tough to break down at times. County boss Dave Challinor wasn’t pleased at all with his team’s performance which was evident by the fact he made three changes at half time including taking off his captain and keeper. Something I’ve never seen before especially considering the fact the keeper wasn’t injured.

He was very critical in his post-match interview.

“We’ve made poor decisions, which has made me make decisions and then we’ve conceded another from another set piece from another free header- from more than one person not doing their job”

“Regardless of what we do, if we don’t sort that out (conceding from set pieces) then we’re going to be in trouble. Because you can’t defend as we’ve just defended.”

When asked his thoughts on Lincoln and whether or not it was individual errors, he said; “Lincoln ask you questions. I don’t want this to be disrespectful for them. They’re a really hard working team, they’re good at what they do- Some of their players and some of my players will think that they can play higher than League one. Based on what I’ve seen, I can’t comment on theirs, my players can’t at the moment. Because if you can’t deal with that type of things then, you’ve got absolutely no chance in football.”

“The first half stunk of Charlton, (a game in which they scored first then went on to draw the game 1-1) score a goal then refuse to play football and if that’s going to be the case, more of what’s happened today will happen in the future.”

Challinor was then asked about his side playing out from the back and what he said back was interesting. “We’re going to play out from the back. We’re going to try and find overloads on the pitch. If that means you play out to look to drag people in to then play beyond them, if that means you play over them, if that means you play through them, if that means you play round them. Then, make the right decision, if we can’t make the right decisions then we’re in trouble.”

“I was happy to get in, as strange as this will sound, level at half time. We should have been in front.- We’ve caused our own problems. We’ve given them a goal, Corey a poor decision I’m not sure where he’s playing.- We have a nailed on penalty on the stroke of half time.”

“But, to do what we’ve done over the course of the game, you have to look and say if you’re going to make those mistakes then you don’t deserve anything from it.”

Also, when asked about the half time subs he mentioned that he treats all players the same in terms of performance including the keeper and that’s why he took him off. He also mentioned that there was a couple more players that he could of taken off. He also said that it was because he could feel the game going away from his side. It seemed a bit desperate and strange to me making those subs at half time but they did get better in the second half on the back of them.

I found it interesting the way he spoke about his side getting out and how it changed in the second half, I say that because I found it similar to the way Skubala talks about how we play out and how you see us get out differently in different games. There are different ways of getting out, and those different ways can work for different games, different game states, targeting certain players or areas, many different things. It comes back to the stat that came out recently that only 6 goals have been scored from playing out from the back all the way through the thirds to the goal and scoring.

Fans online shared the frustration of their manager due to the manner of the defeat and the run they have been on in recent weeks consisting of one win and many draws.