Manager gives match reaction after defeat to Stanley
Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale gave his post-match verdict following the Grecians’ opening game of 2015 – a 2-1 home reverse to Accrington Stanley.The game looked set to end 1-1 – Tom Nichols’ first-half opener had been cancelled out by a Seamus McCartan header midway through the second period, as the visitors came back into the game strongly after having been on the back-foot for much of the first half.
Exeter switched things around in the closing stages and looked to finish on top – Nichols was denied on the line by Tom Aldred, before the centre-half made an impact at the other end in stoppage-time by turning in a winner on the rebound for the Lancashire outfit.
And Paul felt that while the gamble of going for a winner can often lead to a defeat, it still felt especially disappointing to be hit with a late sucker-punch.
“It’s a long season – we’re having a little bit of a sticky patch and we need to get our rhythm back,” said Paul.
“Accrington are entitled to do something as well – it’s not just about us, and they responded. It’s our job to respond to that and we didn’t. We somehow gave them too much space – it’s difficult to analyse it without watching it frame by frame.
“We had the best of the first half – I was pleased with our performance in the first half, albeit I think there are things we could have done a bit better. But we didn’t respond to their pick-up in performance.
“We had to ride that and come back into the game, which we did – be it one-nil or one-all, we changed it with 15 minutes to go and picked up our play again, but it was a disappointing way to lose it at the end.
“I tried to get the win – I changed it for the last 15 minutes to try to get a winner. We lost a point today, but it has to be our intent to go for a win when it’s one-all in home games. We’ve done that numerous times to go for something, and today it didn’t work.
“It feels really tough when it happens to you. But we’ll get our fair share and I’m sure we’ll keep playing the way we do and get our rhythm back.”