Sturrock – Take The Positives

Manager Paul Sturrock has admitted he was gutted with our League Two opening day defeat to Exeter, but he knew there were plenty of positives we could take into QPR.

Exeter 3-2 Yeovil & Highlights
Stats: Exeter v Yeovil

Having gone two nil down in the game, before staging a good fight back to level the scores, Exeter nicked the winner with only a few minutes remaining in the game and speaking to the Western Morning News following the game, Sturrock admitted he was gutted to have not come out with something to show for our considerable efforts on the day.

‘We`re all gutted obviously, because it would have been nice to have gone away from here with something. Defending again let us down, but we showed a fantastic fightback to come from 2-0 down and as the game went on we started creating chances. First half we didn`t play to the standards we`re trying to achieve or to the game plan. As soon as we changed things and got the goal we started going in the right direction.’

Sturrock went on to say that he doesn’t feel we’ll be a ‘pretty’ team this year, but he feels we are showing the signs of being effective when we get things right.

‘If I`d put a team on the pitch today and we`d won 3-0 people would be checking for a magic wand. There`s no easy way to turn things around and sometimes you learn more from losing than you do winning. We`ve got learn from this. There`s lots of players who have come into this football club at all different standards of fitness and it`s been difficult to assess who can handle 90 minutes and who can`t. The attitude we showed was pleasing. We played a team who finished in the top ten last year and we`ve given them a game.’

With Queens Park Rangers up tonight in the Capital One Cup game, the second half performance especially is what Sturrock wants to see us take to them, and having praised the two new signings in the shape of Harry Cornick and Connor Roberts, he confirmed Cornick would be starting the game.

‘It`s a tough first week, but we knew it was going to be. You can`t pick your victims. QPR are a very strong side and I`m expecting them to be in the tussle for promotion this season, so we`ve got to play with the same high tempo that we achieved against Bristol City and Swansea in pre-season. It`s horses for courses and we`re studying the system and style of play they use.’