Yates on.....West Ham United

  • by Staff Writer No.2
  • Wednesday, 28th August 2013

Cheltenham boss Mark Yates shares his thoughts on his side’s exit from the Capital One Cup at the Boleyn….

Mark: You nearly nicked one at the end there?

I[Laughs] Yeah we had a couple of chances; the young lad’s volleyed just wide and the long throw where Byron’s just pulled it wide of the post. But listen, West Ham are a good side. We know that they’ve got some quality players and we rode our luck at times in the second half to even be in it. We showed we’ve got a bit about us and if we can put in that effort in our league games we have a chance.

It didn’t look that big a gulf at times – you didn’t seem overawed…

More than anything else I wanted them to have a go and to not be overawed. We had a set up, a shape we wanted to be when we hadn’t got the ball at times when we didn’t want them opening us with the quality they’ve got. But I wanted us to try and play.

We did better than we did against Tottenham, better than we did against Everton so we’ve learnt something from it so we’ve been better. But we still could’ve been even better for me. The second goal was a bit of a killer, right from the kick-off.

We had various chances to deal with different balls in and around our box. But the lads have shown a bit of character on the back of that. We could easily have capitulated and it could have been three or four or five. We had a bit of luck at times – there were a couple of chances that Scottie [Brown] our ‘keeper’s made some great saves.

Sometimes you need that in cup games and we gave ourselves a chance in the last 10-15 minutes to really have a go. Byron came on and caused them a few problems and we had a few chances.

What did you make of Morrison?

I know he’s a good player, full stop. I saw him at Birmingham last season. His agent was on the phone to me telling me what a good player he was – I’ve got couple of his players as well. He told me he likes to shoot. I knew that – I saw it for myself tonight unfortunately!

West Ham have a lot of good players – we didn’t have a clue what they would do. I noticed when they beat Crewe last year they made seven changes – I was hoping for a few more! They still have plenty in reserve. Diame came on and made a difference – we probably didn’t need that to happen. But I was pleased with my players’ performance tonight.

Cheers, Thank you.

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