Tis – Erm I’m Not Sure How I Feel

Manager Paul Tisdale has admitted he is completely torn in terms of how he feels following our loss to Portsmouth last weekend, but he feels both disappointment and pride following the game.

The second half was clearly our best 45 minutes, but we were tidy in the first 45 as well but we didn’t make our chances count like we did in the final 15 minutes of the encounter and even though their opener was nicely assisted by the weather conditions, Tisdale couldn’t hide his disappointment at finding us behind at the break, and then two down and then three down, but that disappointment soon turned to pride where we almost did enough to fight back for a share of the spoils.

Speaking to the Official Site after the game the manager explained.

‘I can appreciate the type of game and the finish to it, and I appreciate the way we played. I have mixed feelings, of course we lost, but I really liked us today. I like the way we played and how we built our performance – three goals was a tall order to come back from. I would like a repeat of that last 15 minutes more often, I know that’s difficult all the time, but we have to harness a bit of that.’

Whilst Tisdale admits he is more than smarting from some things in the game that went against us, he knows if we play like that more often we won’t go far wrong, and for any neutral fan who had the chance to take the game in he feels they couldn’t have picked a better game last weekend to spend just over 90 minutes of their life on.

For the gaffer again it’s one of those things where the weather conditions didn’t really help either side on the day – certainly didn’t help us with their opener – but that in some ways helped make the game an even better spectacle for those who didn’t have something riding on it. There’s something about football in those conditions, the nostalgia of years gone by and so on, but it’s just a desperate shame that Portsmouth got the benefit of the wind and not us.

Tisdale ends by giving every credit he can to our travelling fans who remained upbeat and loud even at three nil down and he knows the players appreciated the support they were being given, so he’s a little sad that the team couldn’t send them home with a bigger smile on their face, although he’s sure the fans were proud of the teams efforts in fighting back and making it so close.