Keith Hill sorry for fans as Scunthorpe’s ‘downward spiral’ ends in relegation - 7M sport

Keith Hill sorry for fans as Scunthorpe’s ‘downward spiral’ ends in relegation



Posted Saturday, April 16, 2022 by PA

Keith Hill sorry for fans as Scunthorpe’s ‘downward spiral’ ends in relegation

Scunthorpe United manager Keith Hill admitted his thoughts were with the supporters after The Iron were sent tumbling out of the Football League.

A 3-0 defeat at Leyton Orient guaranteed relegation at the end of what has been a wretched season for the club, who were elected into the League in 1950.

First-half goals by Paul Smyth, Theo Archibald and Ruel Sotiriou ensured a 26th defeat in 42 matches this term for the visitors.

“My emotions are with the supporters,” Hill said. “It’s their club and it’s so disappointing, but we have an opportunity to rebuild the football club.

“I think the disappointment of the whole scenario was shown in our performance today and we have a lot of those this season.

“We have been on a downward spiral since 2018. Sometimes, you have to go back to non-league to rebuild financially, rebuild your football squad and then you can go forward to be successful in the future.

“The only positive today is the young players. I left some senior players out of the squad today who have had equal experience of the failure we had, so I felt I may as well give the young lads an opportunity to play.

“But I promised I would rebuild the fortunes of the football club and that has started today.

“We have to try and be positive going forward because otherwise we will end up in the lower echelons of English football and we don’t want that to happen, so we need to learn from our mistakes – and not just footballing mistakes. We have been in (a transfer) embargo and that has made it almost impossible to move forward.”

The victory guaranteed Orient’s own League Two status, with a fifth victory in the nine matches since Richie Wellens took charge.

“It was a comprehensive first 45 minutes but a more frustrating second half,” Wellens admitted.

“I looked at the stats and it was 50-50 second half and whilst we hit the woodwork, something was missing from our game. We took liberties at times, we weren’t as fluid as the first half and we warned the players about that.

“When we play counter-attacking with speed and movement, we look really good.

“I really like Theo Archibald. He’s a pasty jock and you can see when he comes off he is flushed and red. He works like a Trojan and his counter-attacking ability and speed is excellent.

“We would like to keep him but he is contracted to Lincoln but if there’s a deal to be done, it would need to be right for us.

“I rotated the squad because we have another have another important fixture on Monday so I wanted to keep people fresh as possible.”

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