Manager gives match reaction following York draw
Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale was pleased with the defensive qualities that his side showed in a 0-0 draw away at York City.The work of the defenders and their teammates upfield ensured that James Hamon had a relatively quiet afternoon on his return to selection between the sticks. It was just a fourth clean-sheet of the season for the Grecians, and their first in 2015.
In the end though, the Grecians’ defensive stubbornness only resulted in a single point, as Bobby Olejnik also kept a shut-out in the Minstermen’s goal. The York stopper had to be alert on a few occasions, no less than a quick-fire flurry of chances in the first half when Liam Sercombe, Clinton Morrison and Alex Nicholls were denied within seconds of each other by the goalkeeper and his defenders on the cover.
But ultimately a good showing represented a satisfactory point from the 600-mile round-trip to York for the City manager.
“It was a messy game that we needed to come away with something from, and we did,” said Paul.
“I believe we competed well on a very difficult pitch. It was certainly not the conditions for a fluid game of football and I made sure that we approached the game to compete, eliminate mistakes, and defend very well.
“We did that – maybe at the expense of a bit of our attacking play, but today was a day to be steely and tight with our performance off the back of one or two recent results.
“I’m very pleased that we got a good performance; I’m very pleased that we kept a clean sheet; I’m pleased we got a point.”
The defensive unit for Exeter included Jamie McAllister and Danny Butterfield, who started in place of the unavailable Craig Woodman and Matt Oakley.
Butterfield played ahead of a back-four of McAllister, Jordan Moore-Taylor, Christian Ribeiro and Arron Davies and Paul was pleased with the way that that unit performed as a group.
“Our back four and the goalkeeper behind were extremely disciplined with all their decisions – probably typified with Jamie McAllister’s performance,” he continued.
“You won’t see a performance with as many proper disciplined and correct decisions minute after minute. He was symptomatic of a very focused back four.
“So well done to him – he played his position extremely well. And the centre-backs played really well, and as a team we worked really well.
“I wish we had won, but I’m pretty happy with how we have played and the players did particularly well. Nothing sparkling, but the back four came out with real credit.”