Post-game quotes from the manager following Wanderers' narrow friendly defeat to the Stags
Manager Phil Parkinson spoke to Wanderers’ official YouTube channel following his side’s 2-1 pre-season defeat away at Mansfield Town on Saturday.
The hosts held a two-goal lead at half time at the One Call Stadium, with Zach Clough’s strike halving the deficit.
And offering up his thoughts on the game following the final whistle in Mansfield, Parkinson covered the following points…
On the team’s performance throughout the game…
It was a lackadaisical start from us in the first 15 minutes and it’s proved costly. Any team who starts as poorly as we did and who gives the opposition a two goal start, it’s always going to be difficult.
We’ve got to learn from that, pre-season or no pre-season – people will say that results don’t matter, but the start of games are a big part of football and they started better than us today.
Second half, I thought we started better and got back into the game. I just said to the lads that as a team, one who came down last year, we were behind at half time in a lot of games last season, so it was important that we showed the response that we did.
We managed to get the goal back, but then we made wholesale changes as we had planned. We were better in the second period, but we need to make sure that we don’t give ourselves an uphill task in future games.
The centre-backs and defenders have got to spread a mentality throughout the team, especially away from home. The first header and the first challenge is always important and I felt that we were second best in that period and we have to learn from that.
As a group of staff, we don’t like losing in training, so we’re definitely not going to be happy with getting beat in a pre-season friendly.
It’s a big learning curve for myself, looking at how the team plays and the shapes we’ve used so far to ultimately find the formula which will allow us to win games.
On the absence of Rob Holding…
Rob’s got tight hamstring – it’s nothing serious and he was running towards the back end of the week and he’ll train fully on Monday.
On the younger players who featured…
I’m really pleased for the younger lads who got their opportunity towards the end of the game. Since I arrived, it’s been clear to see that the young players at this football club have got very good attitudes and it was good to give them the chance today.
On Max Clayton’s impact since his return from injury…
With Max, we’ve got to take it gradually with him after he’s been out for so long. His attitude has been very, very good though – he’s a dangerous player in and around the opposition penalty box and Zach Clough, he produced an excellent finish and showed what he’s capable of.
What we need to do as a team though is find a way to get him into more of those positions because he’s a key player for us and an excellent finisher.
On the remainder of pre-season, starting with Tuesday’s trip to Tranmere…
It’ll definitely be another good test for the lads. We’ll go into that game having learnt from today, while the lads who didn’t start this afternoon will get their opportunity because we need to get minutes in all the lads’ legs as we approach the last few weeks of pre-season.
There is a lot of work still to be done though as everybody can see, while the fitness aspect of it is always crucial. A lot of the lads have done 60 minutes today, while some went a little longer.
We’ve come away from today with no injuries though which is a positive for us and we look forward to seeing the lads back in training this week.