Gaffer disappointed with first league defeat of the season
Micky Mellon was naturally disappointed following his side’s first league defeat of the campaign at the hands of Hartlepool today. The home side belied their lowly position in the table scoring twice without reply to deservedly land the three points.“When you lose such and early goal it puts you on the back foot and we never really recovered from that,” said the Town supremo. “We huffed and puffed a bit but we didn’t move it quick enough or smartly enough and it was a disappointing performance. I wouldn’t say it was a lethargic performance because this group will always have a right good go and they tried hard today. We haven’t been as good as we’ve been in previous weeks where we’ve shifted the ball a bit quicker. And when we got people into good areas we weren’t good enough in those areas. We weren’t at our best defensively and they always looked a threat whenever the ball went forwards. If you’re going to get anything it’s important to get the basics right to give yourselves any kind of chance.”
Mellon was asked if the half time whistle perhaps came at the wrong time with his team pressing for a first half equaliser. “I never really thought that we were completely out of the game,” he said. “But it was always going to take somebody doing something a little bit better or a little bit smarter. We have been getting into the right areas in recent weeks and executing that right pass or producing a cross but that was missing today.”
Talking about the second goal, Micky was clearly upset with his side’s defending: “When you lose the ball from your own throw-in on the halfway line and they get in behind you, and then fire the ball across for the goal with us looking at sixes and sevens back there, that pretty much summed up our defensive display today,” he said. “To give the ball away so cheaply when we’ve got such good possession and surrender it there to get caught out, it’s not good enough I know that.”
Micky said it would be at least 24 hours until the extent of the ankle injury suffered by defender Cameron Gayle would be diagnosed, with the former West Brom man taken off after just 17 minutes.
In a brief interview, Mellon was asked if he was grateful to have a free midweek after successive Saturday/Tuesday fixtures, but he wasn’t prepared to see that as any form of excuse for today’s below par showing: “We’re glad of a break of course but I’m not going to use that as an excuse for the performance today. We’re such a new group that me personally, I never ever got carried away because there’s still a lot of work to do,” he said. “Over time we’ll continue to learn and we’ll have to do that from today’s game starting on Monday at training as we work hard to prepare for the next game. We never played anywhere near to the levels we’re capable of today.”