Dave Challinor was pleased with how his Stockport side dug deep once more to secure the 1-0 victory over Rotherham on Saturday.
At the New York Stadium, Kyle Wootton’s second-half header was the difference between the two sides in the EFL League One. Read the full transcript from Challinor’s post-match interview:
Dave, congratulations. You’re the first visiting team to win here since March. How pleased are you with the way you dug that one out today?
Yeah, pleased with the reaction at half time because I think first-half from our own perspective, we’re a little bit safe. You know what you’re going to face — balls forward, counter-press, all those sorts of things. But I felt that we needed to try and make the game look like what we wanted it to look like. Even though you’re going to have to deal with that sort of stuff, I thought we showed miles better intent second-half and had territory. And although we created a couple of chances in the first-half, we were no way fluent enough. I thought second-half, right from the get-go really, we backed ourselves a little bit more to play where we want to and get a deserved goal on the back of that.
Today was always going to be a very different game to the one that you faced last weekend, much more of a physical battle, difficult conditions. How pleased are you with the way that your players stood up to that physical test?
Yeah, listen, I think we’ve got a good mix. We’ve got a decent-sized team ourselves, so we should be able to deal with those sorts of things. I think the challenge when you are pressing a team and a team looks to play beyond that press — which was different to last week, because we knew Cardiff would try and play through us, but we almost forced them to play beyond us as well. Rotherham are happy to do that because they get forward runners, and it’s been relatively successful for them, especially here. You’ve still got to win your first contacts, win your duels and the second balls. First-half, maybe because of our shape, I don’t think we did that enough or could have done that a lot more.
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And then what we did when we turned it over, we we then just looked to hit the front and hit forward when I felt we could have got Jack and Beno in pockets. The way they set up, it was always going to be in my opinion wide center-back stepping in. Ethan doesn’t do that as naturally as Joe, but I thought he did it better second-half, which opened things up. And obviously with down that side rather than an out wing-back, it gives you more of a threat and creates some 1v1 situations. So you have to find different ways. Like I say, I would hope that with how we’ve recruited, we can deal with those things as well as play the game in a different way to try and get success.
And talk to us about those subs you made at halftime because, credit to them, they both came on and had an impact. Jayden Fevrier in particular, as you mentioned there, got into some really good areas in that second-half.
Yeah, I just think we didn’t have enough intent. I think when you’re playing against the 3-5-2, if you can get your wing-backs on the top line, then naturally a wide centre-back should be able to step in. They then have to change in terms of whether a midfielder jumps. If a midfielder jumps, we should have had two players in pockets that could hurt them. Beno was probably a little bit too high up in the first-half at times and got himself into a fight with Zack Jules, which can happen, but at times you want him in little pockets and trying to cause them an issue. Same with Jack.
And Jack probably turned the ball over a little bit too much. He needs to be better in those moments. So you then make a decision: if we can have control of the game, we can keep Fevrier on the top line and keep Reece James back and have 1v1 moments. If we don’t, then he’s back defending, which is not where you want him. Likewise with Malik — we’ve got to get him going. We’ve put him in a position where he can be a threat, but unfortunately he’s felt something in his back, had a spasm, and we had to make a change. Some positive stuff when he came on, but still stacks to work on in terms of our expectations from him in and out of possession and his reaction to disappointing moments when he gives the ball away. That was something we went through with Jack for a long time in the first season. Eventually the penny will drop — because if it doesn’t, he won’t get the opportunities for it to drop. A work in progress, but some positives.
You’ll be delighted with the three points, but also how pleased are you with the clean sheet as well, the first one since the opening day?
Yeah, of course that was important. Again, I’ve not seen it back properly, but we probably get lucky because we don’t defend the free-kick well enough. On a different day, the linesman doesn’t give a decision, the ball ends up in your goal, and you go away again after scoring first with a draw — which would have been disappointing, especially on the back of last weekend. We’ve had to make changes across the back line, which hasn’t been ideal. We’ve got some young players in there that have potential but still need to defend better. They’re going to make mistakes, but we can’t afford them to. Last weekend, mistakes cost us two points. This weekend, mistakes nearly cost us another two. People have to learn quickly because we’re in a results-based business. We’re also in a development business — we want players to improve — but we want to compete at the right end of the table. That comes from scoring goals and keeping clean sheets. We’ve scored in every game this season, but we need to stop conceding. It’s about concentration and organisation — doesn’t matter how old or young you are, you need to do that to progress.
There was obviously a change of goalkeeper today. Talk us through the decision to bring Ben back in.
I just felt we needed a reset. That’s it. I spoke to Corey — it was by no means a reflection on him last week. We’ve kept one clean sheet in the last 15. I’m not saying he’s responsible, far from it. But as with goalkeepers, when a mistake happens, the ball ends up in your net. People look for scapegoats. Ben was criticised last season too, but he produced performances that won us games and got us into the play-offs. Corey’s here for a reason. We had Championship interest in him in the summer, he’s pushing for Jamaica’s World Cup squad. He’s one of our group, and he’ll be needed. For us, there isn’t a first choice and second choice — both play an important part. I just felt we needed a reset today. We won, got the clean sheet, and now we move forward.
In terms of the goal you scored, no surprise about Ollie Norwood and Kyle Wootton being involved.
Yeah, Ollie’s quality is obvious — penalties, set-pieces, that free-kick he scored. His deliveries weren’t perfect today, but we know what he can do. The ball in was brilliant, and it was a great header. To score in front of our away fans, who travelled in numbers on a horrible day, and celebrate with them at the end, that was massive. We see this as a reset — the first nine games are done, standards are high, and now we need consistency. Hopefully this is the catalyst.
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Finally, Tyler Onyango wasn’t involved. What’s the update?
Fingers crossed, Tyler will be fine. He played last week with an injury we didn’t know about, got scanned, and it showed an issue. Thankfully, functionally he’s okay, symptoms don’t match the scan. He’s been running and hopefully will be back training Monday.
Your next block of nine starts next weekend at home to Reading.
Yes, and that will be another tough game. Reading are different this year, but we’ll be ready. Our performance last weekend was really good, this weekend was more functional but solid second-half. Now it’s about backing it up, putting pressure on opponents, and believing more in what we can do in possession. That’s what we’ll try to do wherever we play.
Header image: By MGPetch – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=145729592
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