Jacko's thoughts after the draw away to Coventry City
Mike Jackson was fulsome in his praise of his side’s workrate during the 0-0 draw at Coventry. Tom Eaves, Dave McAllister and Jon Taylor all had good chances to win the game for Salop for whom goalkeeper Joe Anyon didn’t have a save to make all day.
“I think we’ve had some great chances to win the game,” said Jackson, “but I thought defensively as a team we worked so hard and everything we’ve worked on in the week they did really well out there. It’s a good point and we’ve gone three unbeaten and if we can beat Bristol City next week and put a run of 6 or 7 games without defeat that would breed confidence. I thought some of the performances today particularly from the 2 centre backs and 2 centre mids were excellent.”
Jackson wasn’t up for blaming any of the players who spurned excellent chances to make it a second successive away win but thought that Eaves and McAllister got in each other’s way for arguably the best opportunity which arrived just past the hour. “Woodsy’s whipped one in there and it’s a free goal to be honest,” said the Town gaffer. “And we’ve broke two or three times at other times in the game so we should have finished them off. It just takes a cool head to sidefoot the ball into the net. But that’s been a problem throughout the season as everybody knows and I’m not going to blame people. If we keep working like that and they keep following what I’m asking them to do, we’ll be not far away from where we need to be.
The team are trying to get out of this and they’re not just going to roll over. I hope that people can see that. I know the fans want to see a goal but if we’ve put 11 behind the ball and not got out of our half, not created chances, fair enough, then call that negative. We’ve set the chances up so what more can we do? We were dominant in the first half and in the second they had a back four that was happy to sit.”
Eaves and Mendez-Laing’s hamstring injuries might throw a spanner in the Salop works so Jackson was quick to point out that a quick decision will have to be taken if reinforcements are required. Jacko even joked that he and goalkeeping coach Danny Coyne may be in contention if things get any worse.
In other injury news Aaron Wildig and Luke Summerfield could both be back inside the next few weeks: “We’ve had some scan results back and they are good so they’re both pushing in the right direction. It gives them both a little peace of mind and Aaron might be ready for Wolves with Luke a week before although we won’t rush them.”
Jackson has told his squad to be ready for action with March being a busy month: “It was nice to name an unchanged side after last week cos they earned it,” he said. “But the squad will be used. You can’t expect players to go eight games or something, so we’ll rotate and anyone selected will need to be ready.”
Jacko – just like the faithful Salop fan base – is now dreaming of a six point return from vital back to back home fixtures against Bristol City and Ceawley.