United boss Keith Curle spoke more about Tuesday night’s home defeat against Stevenage as he looked back on a disappointing result.
On the performance from his team overall, he told us: “It was always going to be a game of few chances but I thought we had the lion’s share of it in the first half. We just didn’t quite have the final touch. The mentality was good going into the game but we needed something to break our way.
“I thought Nicky Adams put some fantastic balls into their box but we aren’t getting a centre forward onto the end of his crosses at the moment. Some of our play was good but I just didn’t feel we had a cutting edge. The goal threat we had on Saturday wasn’t there.”
“In hindsight, you can ask whether I should have changed the formation, but it’s very difficult to do that when you’ve just won 5-0 away from home,” he commented. “The good thing is knowing you have changes on the bench for as and when they’re needed, but tactically I felt they weren’t needed because Stevenage weren’t causing us any problems.
“We were dealing comfortably with what they had but two unforeseen errors cost us the game. People will think that Stevenage have dismantled us, but that wasn’t the case. Also with the benefit of hindsight you can say that playing at home we could have gone with two up front.
“Within that we had good dominance and we had half chances. Reggie’s two shots from the edge of the area in the first half needed to work the keeper. One thing I can guarantee you in this game is that if your shot goes over the bar it isn’t going to get you a goal. You must hit the target because, as we’ve seen, anything can happen when you do.”
Speaking more about Shaun Miller’s lone striker role, he said: “Shaun worked his socks off and he made some good runs. I don’t think we found him enough and I don’t think we stepped it through midfield enough.
“There was good possession at the back without being penetrative. In the end Shaun was chasing lost causes rather than having the support he needed to get into areas where he could cause real problems.
“What we do now is get back into work and continue to concentrate on the things we do well and on the areas where we need to improve. As I’ve said before, results will come because this is a good group. We keep the belief and we keep doing the work and we know we’ll go on a run where we will be very hard to deal with.”
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