Boston boss Elliott: We should have beaten Rochdale

Posted Monday, December 02, 2019 by PA

Boston manager Craig Elliott admitted he was slightly disappointed not to have pulled off a second-round shock following his side’s goalless draw at Rochdale.

The Vanarama National League North outfit were good value for the draw having bossed the game against their Sky Bet League One opponents for long periods.

The home side provided a couple of scares for Elliott’s men, with goalkeeper Peter Crook saving long-range efforts from Rhys Norrington-Davies and Ollie Rathbone late on, while Ian Henderson headed over the top from close range.

Boston had good chances of their own, Jordan Thewlis and Andi Thanoj both denied by Dale goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, and Elliott was slightly put out that they had not made their superiority count.

He said: “I feel like we could have won – we should have won! I feel disappointed because we had chances and opportunities to really turn the screw. That’s how I saw the game, I thought we were excellent and the players deserve a lot of credit.

“Even the substitutes who came on bought into the game plan and it worked well.

“With the videos that I had shown to the lads during the week I felt that Rochdale were weak in wide areas and we have a lot of talent in those areas, so I felt that if we could work the ball quickly into those positions we could cause them problems, and I think that’s where all the problems we cause came from.

“The only thing that was missing was a bit of quality in the final third, and you also need a little bit of luck sometimes with a deflection and that didn’t quite go for us on the day.

“We more than deserved the replay and we now have a big game to look forward to at York Street and I’m really happy about that.”

Henderson had the ball in the back of the net towards the end of a first half dominated by Boston, but the Dale skipper was flagged offside.

The home side had the best of the closing 10 minutes, but other than that they were second best to the underdogs.

“They had a real go at us, which I expected them to do, but we didn’t match their intensity levels for long enough to allow ourselves to impose our game plan on them,” said Dale boss Brian Barry-Murphy.

“We had spells of possession but we had no real penetration and we didn’t aim to have that possession without penetration but the way the game materialised was not how we had planned but we have managed to stay in the cup tie and we had some chances towards the end which will allow us to go into the replay with some excitement.

“It looks a difficult fixture on paper and it will be, but it’s one we feel we can approach in a confident manner.”