Town Head Coach Luke Williams spoke to the media after seeing his side slip to a 3-2 defeat away at MK Dons earlier tonight. Here’s what he had to say…
ON THE RESULT AND PERFORMANCE:
“We started too slow. We came back into the game more and more but we left ourselves with too much to do.
“I’m not sure if the opposition were too good or if we were too timid in our mentality, or maybe it was a combination of both things.
“They are a very good attacking side and they started very much on the front-foot, but we didn’t weather the storm well enough, conceded very early and we gave ourselves too much to do.
“We’ve been through everything with this group and we looked like we had the fight to get back into the game tonight, which on occasions has been questioned, but tonight I couldn’t fault that and the players really tried to get back on level-terms.
“Maybe MK Dons took their foot off the gas and sat deeper and allowed us a little bit more of the ball but it is leaving it too late to start playing when you are 2-0 down.”
ON PERSONNEL CHANGES:
“I think both Conor Thomas and Tom Smith have been trying to show everything they can in training to give themselves a chance to get in the team and both of them showed that they are prepared to scrap and fight for the shirt.
“Conor has got a great physique and he’s very fit and athletic and Tom Smith has shown that he’s not frightened to make a tackle or go and press people and put his head in there.
“Those that know Jon Obika well know that he started his career out wide as a left-winger so, for us, it wasn’t a huge shock.
“He’s got real quality to run at people and beat people and put the ball in the box, and he can also arrive at the far post if the ball is coming in from the other side so there were many reasons why Jon played there and for us it probably wasn’t as big a surprise.”
ON NATHAN THOMPSON’S INJURY:
“There’s a problem with the orthotic that he wears in the boot that he needs to wear to correct his running gait, but there seemed to be some sort of malfunction with it and it caused him to have an extremely sore point in the foot that he couldn’t shake off.
“It was hampering him when he tried to run.
“Knowing Nathan he’ll try and play through the pain (on Monday) even if there is still some lingering about, but I’m sure it is something we can sort out.”
ON THE SUPERB AWAY SUPPORT:
“I thought they were fantastic and we could hear them in this bowl of a stadium and they were quite a long way from the action in the second tier behind the goal.
“We really could hear them and the boys were really grateful for the noise they were making – they really helped us to try and surge forward in the second-half.”
ON JAMES BROPHY’S RETURN:
“It was brilliant and he made an impact when he came on. He ran at people and he had real skill and pace – we’ve missed that.”
