Gary McSheffrey wants wins over performances as Doncaster boost survival hopes

Posted Wednesday, February 23, 2022 by PA

Doncaster manager Gary McSheffrey insisted the win was all that mattered as his side beat Accrington 2-0 to boost their survival bid in Sky Bet League One.

Goals from Josh Martin and Joseph Olowu saw Rovers end a run of seven consecutive home defeats and cut the gap to safety to four points.

Accrington had the better of the attacking play throughout but McSheffrey was only concerned with collecting the win on the night.

“I said to the lads before the game that we’d like a level of performance but more importantly it was about getting a result,” McSheffrey said.

“However it comes, it’s about the result.

“The lads have put their bodies on the line – got their bodies in front of things, won second balls, blocked shots. I’m not sure how Accrington haven’t scored with the amount of balls they’ve put in the box.

“We rode our luck our luck a little bit but I think we earned that in the first 70 minutes against Sheffield Wednesday before we ran out of steam.

“We’ll take the win however it comes. We obviously want the performance level to be there but we’ve set the benchmark for workrate between now and the end of the season.

“It was good to see a good few people last the 90 minutes and look comfortable late on, where we’ve looked vulnerable in the past.

“We’ve got some big six pointers coming up so we’ve said it’s about results in games like this one.”

Accrington boss John Coleman warned his players that they have not yet done enough to guarantee their survival in League One for another season.

In a lengthy post-game discussion with his players, Coleman labelled their performance as “unacceptable” and vowed to bring about a change in fortunes after back-to-back defeats.

He said: “It looks to me that we have switched off and we think we’ve done enough to stay up but we haven’t.

“We’ve got to improve. The lads have been told in no uncertain terms that it was unacceptable.

“There are two ways that you can go about it – you can curl up in a ball or you can puff your chest out and do something about it. And I am in the latter camp, that’s for sure.

“I have to drive those players on and make sure they’re in the same camp as me.

“I warned them at half time that it was sloppy and it looked as though we were playing at 50 per cent capacity. We were lethargic and lazy.

“It didn’t look as though Doncaster had a goal in them but I said to the lads at half time that I’ve seen the end of this film and it ended the way I knew it would.”