Cheltenham Town manager Steve Cotterill insisted the 3-2 defeat his side suffered against Tranmere Rovers on Saturday was not a fair reflection of their performance.
Having gone 2-0 down inside 11 minutes in Birkenhead, the Robins came back to level the tie but returned to Gloucestershire empty handed following a late Charlie Whitaker free-kick that deflected in off goalkeeper Joe Day.
“We’ve ended up losing the game trying to win it, that’s what’s happened,” Cotterill said.
“I am pleased we kept playing and playing. I am not being funny, but at 2-2, we were the only team who were going to win that, they have nicked that at the end from a free-kick.
“It’s hit the post, then come back and hit Joe (Day) and gone in – so I suppose as goals go, that probably sums up today anyway.”
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The former Bristol City manager praised the quality of Cheltenham’s two goals, both of which came from patterns worked on in training, but believes that the overall display warranted more.
He said: “I felt both of our goals were good goals, they are things we’ve worked on and there were other things in the second half that we’ve worked on but couldn’t quite get the finish off.
“But there is absolutely no way we deserved to lose that game today, absolutely no way – even if you take the mistakes out of it for the goals, we were the better team.
“What we have to do is continually try to be the better team and eradicate some of the mistakes, but from time to time they are going to happen.”
Embed from Getty ImagesThe Gloucestershire side saw more of the ball and created more chances than the hosts, but Cotterill wants that control to be more evident from the first whistle.
He said: “What I want us to do is to be on our front foot from minute one.
“We stuck them on the back foot today and we were the better team.
“Would I rather have won the game and not be the better team? Probably, yes, because of where we are at the moment.
“But if you are trying to build something long term and put some rules and regulations down to how we have to play, I’d rather play like we did today.”‘
