Read back the manager's post-match thoughts following Saturday's draw with the Dons
Phil Parkinson offered up his thoughts following his side’s draw with MK Dons on Saturday afternoon.
Having taken the lead through a Jay Spearing free-kick, the Whites were ultimately forced to settle for a share of the spoils come the final whistle after Kieran Agard’s equaliser.
And speaking following the final whistle, the manager covered the following points…
On the game as a whole…
I think given everything that has gone on this week and also today, it was a good point for us.
We’ve changed the squad around quite a lot and also come to a stadium where there’s a party atmosphere with over 20,000 fans inside the ground.
We then lost Andy Taylor in the warm-up and we’ve had to bed in quite a few new players too who aren’t quite at their peaks physically yet, but I thought they all did very well.
For us to then lose Lawrie Wilson late on was a blow too with his hamstring. It felt as though a lot conspired against us this afternoon.
If you take all of that into account though, it was an excellent point for us and I was really pleased with the efforts of the lads.
On the late withdrawal of Andy Taylor…
Andy’s has a bit of trouble with his groin during the course of the week. In the warm-up though, he just felt it and we took the decision that it wasn’t worth the risk of playing him.
We’ve got a very good replacement in Dean Moxey though.
On the performances of his four debutants…
I thought everyone did very well. Obviously we had Chris and Filipe who started, while we gave both Alfie and Viv some time in the second half.
We came up against a good side today though who scored four last week and five in their last home game, so we knew we’d have to hit the ground running, especially with the new boys.
I think they all made very good contributions though.
On Jay Spearing getting on the scoresheet..
It was a great delivery from Jay for the goal and it was an effort which certainly gave us a lift at half time.
I thought that we had a couple of other great chances in the first half too with Longy narrowly missing the net with a header.
Getting in at half time one ahead was terrific, but when we took Filipe off it disrupted us a little bit which ultimately proved costly.
And finally, on looking ahead to two consecutive home games…
We’ll take the point today, but now we’ve got a week before back to back home games.
We’ll use that time though to bed the new boys in and work hard on the training ground to find a formula to get us winning again.