Manager gives reaction to York draw
Following a 1-1 draw against York City at St James Park, manager Paul Tisdale was left pleased with his side’s performance but ultimately frustrated to not have been able to secure a win.David Wheeler’s eighth-minute header had given Exeter a lead, only for Keith Lowe to reply in kind from a corner with ten minutes to spare.
“I’d love to be here talking after having got three points,” said Paul. “We were only shy of that by a disappointing goal from a set piece, which I warned them about before the game.
“Three points is so important – really important – and I’m really disappointed. But I’m really proud of how they played today.
“We need the three points desperately for everyone’s peace of mind. It feels like the season has started a month too soon for us.
“By September-time I’m hoping that [Christian] Ribeiro and [Jordan] Moore-Taylor will be fit and ready to play again.
“It’s going to be difficult but we’ve got to stick with it and eke out every point we can at the moment because there’s a long season ahead of us. Every point makes a difference.”
When the teamsheets were delivered at 2pm, it wasn’t immediately obvious exactly how Exeter would line up.
Many which saw the lineups may have expected to see Matt Oakley deployed in the hole and Scot Bennett as a centre-half – but, in fact, the inverse happened, with captain Bennett acting as a makeshift target-man and veteran Oakley pulling the strings from the defensive live.
Until Lowe’s equaliser, heading in Luke Summerfield’s corner, it all looked to be going to plan. And the simplicity of the gameplan was a factor in manager Paul Tisdale’s eyes.
“Today was a simple instruction – it was to play in the opposition’s half and play forward,” he continued. “I put two big bodies up there in Graham [Cummins] and Scot [Bennett] and we played there.
“It’s not the ideal situation when you’re moving players around to try to give different instructions. You’d like to give instructions that every player is capable of doing all of it.
“They put themselves about and we had a solid, energetic and robust start and we got a goal lead.
“It’s about utilising the talents of the players and putting them into positions where they’re going to get the opportunity to use those talents.
“We were delivering forward today and it seemed like a good idea to put Matt Oakley in a position where he could be behind the ball to put the ball at his feet in good areas, and we wanted Scot Bennett on the end of things.”
Click here to watch Paul Tisdale's full post-match interview on Grecian Player.