John Goddard is hurting from Town’s relegation from the Sky Bet League One and he’s hoping to finish a bitterly disappointing season on a high today.
The Reds bring the curtain down on their 2016/17 campaign away at Charlton Athletic this afternoon (12pm Kick-Off), and Goddard reflected on what the last week has been like since relegation was confirmed last weekend.
“It has been very tough and probably the toughest few days I’ve had in my professional career,” he said.
“Getting relegated is a horrible feeling and football is our lives, it is what we live for and it has been a period of reflection.
“It is done now, we’ve got to react to it and in life you learn from your mistakes and you learn from the negatives, probably more than you do from the positive things in your life.
“We need to be reflective and try and learn a lot from this season.
“Relegation happens over a long period of time and the league table doesn’t lie - you are there on merit wherever you finish.
“There haven’t been one or two incidents where you would say that has been the turning point, we’ve just not been good enough over a period of time and clearly we haven’t got the results that we would have liked to.
“It has taken course over a period of time and we’ve not managed to turn the tide or get the results.
“We’ve had a couple of phases in the season where it has looked like we’ve turned the corner, we’ve got some positive results in tough fixtures as well and we’ve not managed to capitalise on them which has been very disappointing.
“We’ve had some good matches this season and some good results but they’ve been too infrequent.
“We have got ability in the dressing room, we’ve got a lot of young players who will hopefully go on and have good careers but, as a group, it has not been up to the standard that is required.
“There is talent but as a team we’ve certainly underachieved this season, which is obviously very disappointing.”
Town bring the curtain down on their 2016/17 season today away at Charlton Athletic (12pm KO), and Goddard admits the fixture is all about pride.
“For us as a group, today’s game is all about pride and we need to go out there and try and do the shirt justice,” he added.
“There will be fans travelling who deserve a performance, there will be certain players who will be playing their last game for the club who will want to do well, so everyone wants to do well for different reasons.
“I want to do well for my own pride and it would be good to finish on a win and give something back to the fans.
“It won’t change relegation, we’re aware of that, but you don’t want to go out there for the sake of it and we want to go out there and do a professional job.”
