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Steve: "The Mental Scars Are A Problem"

16 January 2016

Club News

Steve: "The Mental Scars Are A Problem"

16 January 2016

Alex boss gives us his reaction after his team are dealt another late blow.




He added: "I will go through the DVD again tomorrow and look at what I could have done differently from a tactical perspective. We will go through again on Monday and I always try and be positive. We will look to pick them up again and bounce back. We are all suffering, me, the staff, the players and the supporters, everyone. We all know that and all you can do is work as hard as you can every day to try and turn it around."

"We have to keep that belief and keep working hard. I cannot fault that from them and their first half play was terrific, so we know they can do it. They have to keep believing and try and put two halves together more often.

"Unfortunately, we have too many of them who are finding it hard to transfer what we do in the practices and the drills and take that into the games. It can be the simple things like marking their men properly rather than space.

"Our inability to put two halves together is there again. The majority of our players struggle to do that and find that consistency. And when that lead goes they do get nervous and come unstuck. It is a mental thing with them and it is hard for them to get over those mental scars after what happened at Doncaster. It affected them and this will not help some of them either. They have to become more resilient because football can be tough.

"The winning goal came from a throw in. We didn't shut the shot down and Ben has parried it out and no-one has followed Nicky in and he has his tap-in.

"We then spoke about all the danger associated with having a two-goal lead at half-time. We told them to stick to their jobs and mark their men and we didn't to it. Their second goal was down to the defenders not marking the forward players and the third goal, I'm not sure what we were trying to do with that one. I don't know why he did that at all and I will have to watch it back.

"After their first goal, we got ourselves going and I thought we were terrific in the first half. The game plan was terrific and we punished them with some well worked goals. It could have been 4-1 at half-time with Brad getting in there again just before half-time. I would have expected him to do better there.

"We don't start games well in those opening ten minutes and we don't start the second half well enough either and that is something we need to address because it has happened too many times.

"We tried to get answers out of the players. It is usually my voice in the dressing room afterwards or James (Collins) so we wanted some answers from them. They are a quiet group and they don't tend to speak up but we got something out of them and that is a positive to take forward. They are massively disappointed because from leading 3-1 at half time we have had it taken from our grasp again.

Following on from late defeats to the likes of Doncaster and Shrewsbury over the festive period and now today, the Alex boss told the club's official web-site: "It has happened too many times now and there are players out there who are half expecting to happen. The mental scars they are suffering with are there and are a massive problem for us at the moment. We have conceded too many late goals and it has affected them.

Crewe Alexandra boss Steve Davis couldn't hide his frustration and disappointment after another late goal, this time from our former loan striker Nicky Ajose, saw us collect nothing for our efforts. Crewe had led 3-1 at the half time interval following a superb first 45 minutes - but a Swindon revival saw Ajose nick the points late on with a 92nd minute tap-in. It was another hammer blow to take, especially after our super attacking play in that first half.

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