Bristol Rovers fell to an unfortunate 1-0 defeat away at Reading, having been forced to play the majority of the second half with 10 men after Shaq Forde was shown two naive yellow cards either side of half-time.
The Royals created more chances in the first half with Harvey Knibbs forcing an outstanding save from Josh Griffiths from point-blank range but Ruel Sotiriou should have handed the visitors the lead, firing narrowly wide.
After a promising first half display, the Gas were forced to play over half an hour with 10 men after Forde kicked the ball away in frustration having conceded a foul.
Sam Smith handed Reading the lead soon after but Matt Taylors’ side’s response was nothing short of outstanding with Rovers unlucky not to come away with a result.
Here is everything the Gas manager said to local media in the aftermath of Rovers’ 1-0 defeat…
Matt, where do you start with that? What a game of football.
What a game. Gutted for the lads. They’ve not come out with something. I’d like to think anyone who was here today would say we deserve something out of the game. We’ve made some errors in the game. We have. I’ve said there’s a naivety to us, which means we make mistakes.
But what I saw, when we had to, was another level of play in all departments and also our character and our personality which I loved and I think our fans loved and I just wish that they had something to show more than the actual scoreline and the feeling because anyone who wasn’t here today would say Bristol Rovers got beat 1-0 and had a man sent off. There’ll be no understanding or context to it.
It seemed like it was two different matches within one, before the red and after the red. Let’s go for before the red, I thought your team were actually fully in that game.
We were. Like I say, we made a couple of mistakes and gave them some chances which were needless chances. But, we didn’t do enough in certain moments of the game. But, we had chances ourselves and maybe not as clear cut. But yeah, I was comfortable with where the team was.
The red is what it is, you all saw it. It’s stupidity, naivety, immaturity. Yeah, it’s a poor moment for us and then the goal obviously comes off the back of chasing the space a little bit.
We tweaked it, we made some changes. We had a left-back, left-wing-back playing up front, but we kind of knew what he’d give us in certain moments of the game. Yeah, I was so, so proud of that group of players.
The red card, I mean, you’ve used two words to sum it up already. Have you had a chance to talk to Shaq yet about it?
No. Probably best I don’t talk to too many people at the moment because of emotions are still riding high. Needless bookings at different stages throughout the game will always add up and there’s no more needless one than throwing the ball away right in front of a referee in an away stadium who always going to be up and at him.
I have to say, that if it’s a red card it’s a red card, I’ve got no qualms with that, but the referee was incredibly poor from that moment on. From that moment on, incredibly poor. So yeah, I’m sure we’ll get a report of some sort saying he made the majority of the decisions right. He didn’t and that’s not to say that’s why we lost the game. But from that point on, for some reason, he didn’t want to give us anything.
After the red card, what pride did you feel in the team that were left out there?
Well, you saw it. You saw it. They gave everything and a little bit more which is what they have to give, no matter what. But obviously the sending off and the belief and the way the game was going, I think they believed they could get something out of that game and probably deserve something out of the game towards the end.
Bar a couple of incredible saves and some last ditch defending, you wouldn’t have known we were the team with 10 men.
And I suppose, is that something that you can take forward?
Yes. It’s not a turning point in the season because we’ve come into this game in good form. But we certainly felt a different connection to the pitch, each other and the fans at the end of the game. And I hope we can now pick that up and take it to a new level.
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We’ve spoken about flexibility and formations, I thought both used today before and after the red card seemed to work well.
People will talk about formations…honestly mate, it does my head in and I’m a manger. It does my head in. You run as hard as you can and give me intent. You pass forward. You do the basics of the game really well. It’s irrelevant what formation you play. We played two different formations today. We looked a good team in both.
The back-three always allows you an extra body in midfield to maybe link the ball a little bit more. But yeah, both suit us to a certain extent. The big thing now is we’ve got no fit centre-forward at the club. That’s the irony of the situation. But no one will talk about that.
What is the issue for Promise [Omochere]? What can you tell us?
It’s his ankle. Got a couple of whacks in that in that first half. It’s a physical game. We’ll see where the bodies are at going into Tuesday. But probably Lincoln’s the next one, we need a centre-forward against Weston and Exeter, but Lincoln’s the next one where we need to be able to put forwards out there.
At the end there you had almost 2,000 away fans, biggest away following of the season, and the way they chanted for your team, that must be something you’re really pleased about and it shows the type of performance it was.
Yes, it was. It was everything we want from a Bristol Rovers team. But yeah, we just spoke in there about the wider game forced us into a version which I absolutely loved and we haven’t seen yet this season. That was another level of play, of desire, of running, of absolutely everything. And maybe sometimes the simplicity with a player less. I honestly don’t know.
But yeah, I’m sure they appreciated it. We appreciated them today, early kick-off. They came in good numbers, even before the sending off and the way the second half unfolded, they were in good voice. So we have to acknowledge that and certainly on the back of where it’s been recently. Yeah, that’s a real connection.