United manager Mark Robins has expressed his delight at United’s performance following the 1-1 draw with Bolton Wanderers on Friday evening.
Josh Vela fired the visitors in front after only a few minutes but a Paddy Madden penalty moments after half-time ensured the friendly fixture ended honours even.Robins was pleased to see his team matching the second tier outfit stride for stride and believes the Iron had enough chances to win the game.
He told The Iron Player HD: “I thought we did alright. If you look at the team we put out, it was bright and I think we created enough opportunities to win the game.
“Pre-season is about getting through games, getting your fitness and trying to get things right before the start of the season.
“We’re doing more things right than wrong which is pleasing. There are things that we need to tweak and things that we need to work on but we’ve still got a few weeks to do that until we start against Burton.
“There were some really pleasing aspects of our play.”
United are unbeaten in four pre-season matches so far and were able to hold a Championship side for the second time in the space of a week, following the 1-1 draw against Middlesbrough last Saturday.
The manager was especially pleased with the way the Iron performed and strives to get United playing a brand of football that’s easy on the eye.
“We’ve hit the bar, we’ve had one or two good opportunities, we’ve defended okay and the players are trying things and being brave,” he continued.
“It takes a certain mentality to try and play. Anybody can smash the ball up field and try and fight for second balls but were trying to play in a way that’s easy on the eye and a lot of the things we did were pretty good.
“We needed to speed it up at times in certain areas but I thought when we went forward, we looked really dangerous and a real threat.
“We could have scored more than one goal. Paddy has tucked his penalty away well and I think the ‘keeper has made one or two decent saves from headers from Kevin van Veen and from Paddy again at the end.”
Luke Williams was substituted during the opening period after taking a knock but Robins is hopeful that it isn’t anything too serious and that the midfielder will be fit and available as United prepare to face Sheffield Wednesday and Notts County over the next seven days.
He added: “Luke came off and thankfully there’s nothing majorly wrong so hopefully he’ll be training on Monday and we can get on with things.
“It’s not a pull, it’s just a bit of tightness in the side of his leg but apart from that, he’s alright and we have two good games coming up now against Sheffield Wednesday and Notts County.”
See much more from Mark Robins, Paddy Madden and Stephen Dawson on The Iron PlayerHD.