Graham Turner’s thoughts after the defeat away to AFC Bournemouth
Graham Turner was not surprisingly a frustrated figure when he spoke to the press following his side's 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth on Tuesday evening.
"It's the same as we've been saying for some time; we can't give sides a start like we have done tonight. The wall has got to do its job for the first one - it's gone straight through the wall, under people's feet and we'll examine that and see who's culpable but you can't give a goal away like that early on. The second one, I don't think there was a doubt after the ball came back off the post that the lad handled it, the fourth official said to me that he informed the referee from here that it was handball and later on the referee said that it wasn't deliberate - I think that he tried to put it in with his hand! And the same with the penalty appeal for us later on, the referee said it was handball but it wasn't deliberate so he didn't give the penalty.
But that can't disguise the bad start that we had. They've got good players here and if you give a good team a two goal start then they're going to pass the ball and create chances and they caused us a few problems in the first half and we were at full stretch, there's no disguising that. We were fortunate to come off still in the game at half time. It's difficult to understand how we can start five games out of six now where we've given the opposition a goal start in the opening five minutes.
You look at all sorts of reasons and how we can stop it - we've talked about it often enough and had a big meeting on Sunday about it. Everyone looks as though they're wound up and ready to start the game.
I think the players worked hard - a lot, lot harder than we did at Hereford on Saturday and somehow we've got to maintain some belief and some confidence in ourselves as we go to Leyton Orient on Saturday with a determination not to let an early goal go in - and this time we might succeed.
As Bournemouth had missed one or two opportunities you start to wonder whether it might be on the cards that we get an equaliser - we got in one or two promising positions but we probably had better opportunities in the first half, one fell to Aaron Wildig and we had one or two in and around the box that we could have been brighter with and Jon Taylor worked the full-back hard and put in a good shift. So yes, you're always optimistic that you're going to get an equaliser but obviously it didn't materialise.
There were a number of changes to the starting line-up and the manager was asked how he felt those players had done:”I think Julian Bennett did well. Luke Summerfield started to feel ill on the way down, he was scheduled to play but felt really rough at the hotel and started to be sick so obviously he had to come out. It could have been the amount of painkillers he has taken because of his dislocated thumb injury from the Hereford game. Jamie Proctor has done ok with Marvin and Aaron Wildig has got onto one or two balls but we should have passed it better than we have done and in that respect we have missed Luke Summerfield because he is decent on the ball.