Manager Neil Harris has admitted mixed emotions following Tuesday evening’s spotty performance against Rochdale by Millwall.
Heading to Spotland for the game there were plenty of high and low lights on show as we battled to a three all draw on the day and Harris knew the end to the game had to leave him content with a point, but until the half hour mark he was only going to have been happy with all three.
Racing into a two nil lead with Lee Gregory converting his penalty and Aiden O’Brien giving us the two nil advantage after 25 minutes of the first half had been played, Rochdale hit back quickly and sharply and went into the half time restart level, scoring their third nine minutes after the restart.
A difficult second half period finally paid off when Jed Wallace scored our leveller in the 77th minute and that was where it ended.
Speaking to the official site in his post game press conference, Harris explained.
‘Standing here now on the back of being 3-2 down, coming back to 3-3 and nearly winning the game, you can say its a good point. But, being 2-0 up and coasting, missing a chance to make it 3-0 – there’s disappointment. My team over the last few months has been built on being solid – we wasn’t that in parts tonight. I want to be attacking and free-flowing – I want to score goals – but not at the expense of giving away silly goals like we did tonight. We’ll get back on the training ground on Thursday and I’ll remind the boys of their duties. There’s some individually disappointed people because they’ve not played as well as they should have done, but we’re over the 60-point mark – it’s another barrier beaten.’
With two more away trips to Swindon Town and Sheffield United, Harris was now focused on Swindon and looking for a similar attacking display but a far better defensive one.
‘What we’ve now got is a massive game on Saturday at Swindon – our biggest game of the season. We have to make sure we’re better defensively as a unit. Sixteen unbeaten is a great record, but we can’t think we can roll into Swindon on Saturday and get a result. We have to get that balance between a good, solid team that gets a clean sheet, but also have the attacking purpose to be able to score goals.’
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