Gareth Ainsworth insists Wycombe will keep fighting in bid for survival
Posted Sunday, March 07, 2021 by PA
Wycombe boss Gareth Ainsworth insists his side will not concede defeat in their relegation battle following their 2-0 defeat at Stoke.
Rhys Norrington-Davies opened the scoring after calmly slotting through David Stockdale’s legs following a brilliant one-two with Steven Fletcher after 64 minutes.
Harry Souttar doubled the home advantage after heading home from Tommy Smith’s chipped corner five minutes later.
It leaves Wanderers 12 points adrift of safety with just 12 games to go.
“We are still fighting hard,” he said. “Even at 2-0 down we were fighting and there were positive performances.
“Games are running out and it is tough, but we are fighting hard and I’m proud of the boys.
“We are always going to fight and try. We are never going to give up no matter how dark the fight seems and I’m proud of that.
“Stoke are a good side, they have a Champions League winner in their team and they are probably underachieving. We are not underachieving.
“We are in the Championship and it is brilliant to be here. We have got 12 games to go and we need to win 75 percent of them.
“That is not going to be easy, but we will never say it is over until it is over.
“Both teams had their chances today. The moments of quality in both boxes are the difference at this level.
“We had a fantastic chance before they scored and they are the moments that can change the game.
“You get moments and you have to make them count. We had a similar amount of set-plays to them.
“They scored from one and their first goal was a good bit of play, but we should be more secure on the edge of our box.
“I don’t like conceding from set-plays and we need to be better than that.”
Stoke boss Michael O’Neill felt his side had been wasteful and should have won more convincingly.
“We deserved to win the game, there is no doubt about it,” he said.
“We were wasteful in the first 20 mins of the game and should have scored two or three during that period of play.
“We got dragged into a battle in the first half which we were trying to avoid.
“Wycombe had two time-outs in the first half based on the goalkeeper supposedly being injured, which the referee allowed.
“That is their strategy. They want the game to be stop start and to frustrate the opposition and that is something they do well.
“We played well in the second half and it’s disappointing we didn’t win by more.
“We had got into some good areas and some of our play was good. We were just wasteful in terms of the end product.
“You get inconsistencies from young players and you will never get 90 mins of real quality from them.
“We have to be patient with them. Rhys (Norrington-Davies) is a player who needs to play on the front foot, he steps into the game and is decisive.
“He has not played with the purpose he did the first few games, but we saw in the second half why we brought him in.
“We have gone through a mixed spell over the last six games and it was important to win the game.”
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