Development Coach on Blues loss
Steve Eyre felt his side deserved to lose to Birmingham City in Monday afternoon’s Professional Development League 2 North match, despite taking a two goal lead.
Four unanswered efforts from Blues striker Akwasi Asante earned his side an away victory against Town, who were recently crowned winners of the league.
The defeat is only the Terriers’ second of the season and came after a deflected Matt Crooks effort and a strike from Paul Mullin had given Town an early two goal lead.
Defender Joel Lynch, who had surgery last month to rectify a groin injury, made his first appearance since undergoing the operation alongside Joe Wright in defence. The former Nottingham Forest defender played 64 minutes of the clash before being subbed.
Speaking to htafc.com, Eyre said: “I am disappointed. Obviously losing football matches is part and parcel of football and the lads will have to get used to that as their careers progress. How you lose football matches is key to how they move forward.
“After a fantastic start full of intensity and quality, which culminated in us scoring early two goals, we started to think about how many goals we would score. From that moment the intensity went out of the game and we lost the core values that are required to win a football match.
“Our effort dropped and our play became clumsy and our young, hungry opponents worked harder than us,” Eyre continued. “All credit to Birmingham, but I have just said to the players that sticking to the core values wins your matches. Formations and styles of play change like fashion, but things that will never go out of fashion are the core values of hard work, tackling, marking and making forward runs and after the first ten minutes we failed to do that. We deserved to get beat.”
Town, who featured Duane Holmes, Matt Crooks and Jordan Sinnott, had chances to peg Birmingham back, but according to Eyre his players weren’t clinical enough.
“We needed to be more ruthless and take control of the game,” he said. “We could have either gone harder or kept the game in check, but equally you have to give Birmingham credit because at two goals down they could have buckled. They grew into the game and we shrunk.
“We had chances throughout to either go on at 2-0 or to get back into it. We didn’t do enough though, and all in all it was a rare bad day.
“There is plenty to work on and we will get started straight away tomorrow morning. Our focus will switch to the next game, but we certainly won’t let this one pass as lightly as we have done in the past.”
Town’s team:
Ian Bennett; Jake Carroll, Joel Lynch, Joe Wright, Calum Woods; Paul Mullin, Duane Holmes, Sondre Tronstad, Jordan Sinnott; Matt Crooks, Harry Bunn
Substitutes:
Lloyd Allinson, Will Boyle, Jake Charles, Joe Wilkinson
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