Bristol Rovers boss Matt Taylor sees room for improvement after first win

Posted Wednesday, December 13, 2023 by PA

New boss Matt Taylor says he is still learning about his players after Bristol Rovers endured some tricky second-half moments in a 4-2 FA Cup second-round victory at Crewe.

Taylor secured his first win in his third game since taking charge of the Pirates at the beginning of the month, but what looked like an easy canter to a third-round trip to Norwich faded in a jittery closing period at Gresty Road when the home side halved a four-goal deficit.

John Marquis, James Wilson and Anthony Evans all scored in the first half and Ryan Cooney’s own goal made it 4-0 before Elliott Nevitt and Aaron Rowe got the the League Two side back into the contest.

Taylor said: “It is not about me, but about the team winning games of football.

“I am learning about this group of players and the first 70 minutes was really positive.

“Crewe have had good home form, so to be 3-0 up at half-time was excellent. We have now got to work as hard as we did for the first 70 minutes of that game.

“I’ve watched a lot of footage and that is the best I’ve seen from us. We won the ball high up the pitch when we were able to get pressure on the opposition and we have got players of a certain talent that can put the ball in the back of the net.

“But while we were excellent in parts, we were not in other parts and a few things went against us which I was not happy with. We could have been 5-0 up and probably should have been with a penalty decision and the game would have been dead and buried.

“But they broke away and put the ball into the back of the net and we had a little bit of a stagger in the second half. There’s a little bit of learning we have to take from that, but considering Crewe got two goals back with a bit of time left I am pleased it didn’t materialise into something else.”

Crewe manager Lee Bell was frustrated with how his side started the game.

“We have too good a group of players to allow things like that to happen,” he said.

“There’s a lot to learn from as the goals we conceded were unacceptable and if we continue that trend then we are not going to be successful.

“Bristol sat deep and we got in behind a number of times in the first half, but the decisions we took were the wrong ones.

“We have got to get better and get better, but we have got players who are coming back to fitness and hopefully we’ll have a full squad to pick from in the next week or two.

“Our crowd have been brilliant and we wanted to make it as exciting as we could for them – I thought we could have pinched one more as well – and hopefully they won’t see too many performances like that or see us let goals like that in again.”