Clayton on the 5-1 reversal at Leeds United
Town midfielder Adam Clayton said the team showed real naivety in their 5-1 West Yorkshire derby defeat at Leeds United today.
As has been the case in previous weeks, Town spurned several good chances in the first-half and ended up coming away with nothing, with a poor second 45 minutes largely to blame.
“For 44 minutes I really enjoyed the game; I thought we were the better team. I thought we were on top of the game and the crowd was edgy,” Adam explained.
“We got the goal, but I thought we could have had a couple more and probably should have gone it 3 or 4-1 up at half-time. Wardy had another one as has Nahki – and Nahki had another at 2-1 in the second-half that would have got us back in the game.
“We conceded a minute before the break and it was very avoidable; the ball bounced in our area twice and we have to get something on it rather than waiting to get a good purchase on it. We have to learn when there’s danger and when there’s not.
“The second-half was the worst 45 minutes we’ve played this season; it’s unfortunate it’s come here. When you come to Elland Road you have to keep the first and last five minutes of each half tight, because if you don’t the crowd play a massive part.
“I think the last 20 minutes were a bit false, especially when (Anthony) Gerrard went off. They got on top of us though, so fair play to them.
“I think we’re a bit naïve sometimes and we make silly mistakes that gift people goals. Whenever we score it comes from a lovely flowing move or a piledriver – we never get gifted things – whereas sometimes we gift-wrap goals to the opposition. We need to stop doing things like that.”
Despite the heavy defeat, Clayton found two positives from the game:
“I thought our fans were brilliant today. In the first-half they drowned out 20,000 + home fans. Joe Lolley also looked very good; he got past a few players and earned us a few fouls. Hopefully he can be utilised to get some goals.”
Adam is now keen to move past this defeat and refocus on Saturday’s home game against Wigan.
“We have to move on. This happened to us last season and we’re still alive. We’ll group together and go again, as we’ve been playing some good stuff this season. We’re a young a team and I think we’ve been very good this season, but today we got caught.
“We have a few good games to come, including some at home, and we have to remember we’ve been good. This was one costly half and we’ll bounce back, because we have some good characters. We also have Peter Clarke coming back and he can be a major influence on the likes of Murray Wallace and Tommy Smith.”
