United manager Russ Wilcox has claimed his 24th match in charge of the club was one of his toughest challenges to date, however, he is delighted to have broken a 125 year world record.
Last Tuesday’s win at Cheltenham has seen the Iron level a feat that was set by Preston North End manager William Sudell in 1889 but Wilcox is now holds the longest unbeaten run to the start of one’s first managerial job.United remain in second place in League Two following the 0-0 draw with Wycombe, while the other two matches that were in the back of the players’ mind also ended with the same score line.
Fleetwood held league leaders Rochdale at Highbury while Burton also drew with York.
Speaking during his post-match press conference Wilcox told The Iron Player: “You always want to win games but today you have to look at the bigger picture and that is now 24 games unbeaten.
“There is a lot of credit there that goes to the group."
“The players have come a long way and they all showed that today what they are about and how determined they are,” he continued.
“I think today showed exactly today what the group are about and that is why we have gone 24 games unbeaten.”
United were forced to play the final 25 minutes of the match with 10 men.
They had made all of their substitutes when Gary McSheffrey pulled up with a hamstring injury.
This led to Wilcox having to enforce a versatile formation on the team and it resulted in a number of players playing in positions that they weren’t used to.
“We had Hakeeb playing at right-back and I was a little concerned about playing him there, but I think he did really well and when I said to him afterwards it’s all part of his development,” Wilcox told the local media.
“I’m sure Hakeeb has not played there before in his career.
“You have to make decisions very quickly and I thought that was the best way to go with it,” the Iron boss continued.
“We had legs out wide and we went 4-4-1 with Paul Hayes through the middle.
“I think that was the best shape and personnel to put there.”
Wilcox added: “It was a scrappy game and there wasn’t much quality but the best thing was that we came off at the end of the game with a well deserved point and the other results have ensured that everything stays the same.”
United might now have won this afternoon but neither did Rochdale, Fleetwood, Burton or York.
This means the league remains exactly as it did before the start of play today and that is something that Wilcox is slightly disappointed about.
“Obviously we are disappointed by that as we’d like to win and take advantage over the other teams but we didn’t deserve to win the game today.
“Wycombe came here and made it difficult for us. They parked the bus up as Jose Mourinho would say and I am not going to criticize then for that.
“They do what they want to do with their 11 players and it was very difficult for us,” he said.
“There was very little space behind and it was difficult to get the ball in. They defended from the half way line to their box and they made it difficult for us to break them down.”
See much more from Russ Wilcox, Dave Syers and Eddie Nolan on The Iron Player.