Iron manager Graham Alexander is looking for his side to bounce back from Saturday’s defeat to Rotherham United when they visit Peterborough United this Tuesday night.
The match at the ABAX Stadium sees his team play for the second time in three days, and Scunthorpe will be eyeing a second successive away win.
Alexander spoke to iFollow Iron ahead of the clash against Grant McCann’s Posh.
REFLECTING ON SATURDAY…
GA: We have slight room for improvement from Saturday in terms of the match-winning moments in both boxes. However, I felt our general play was good on Saturday. I watched the game back on Sunday morning, in the cold light of day, and we did a lot of good stuff – without creating the chances that we hope to do when we get into these positions. We’re all hurting from Saturday because we felt it was a game we didn’t deserve to lose. We wanted a positive result against a rival in the play-off positions. That closes the gap between them and us, which was a disappointment, but we need to overcome it really quickly because we face another challenge from another good team on Tuesday. We’re going to direct the players in what we need to do a little bit better on Tuesday. We’ve won games not playing as well, certainly, but probably creating a couple more chances. We need to be ruthless at both ends, and that comes down to keeping clean sheets as well and not giving the opposition soft goals. It hurts, it’s all well and good playing well inbetween the boxes but it’s in the boxes where games are won and lost. I was disappointed with the last 10 minutes or so when we didn’t get a foothold as the team chasing the game. We lost our composure a little bit, and didn’t get the ball into Willo (Luke Williams) as much as we could have or hoped. It petered out towards the end apart from the great chance (Duane Holmes’ effort in the dying seconds).
ON WHETHER LEE NOVAK PLAYED HIMSELF INTO THE TEAM WITH HIS GOAL…
GA: All the players are always in my thoughts. We haven’t got an oversized squad. We’re constantly analysing them all, and they’re all within touching distance of the starting team. They are always training to be in our thoughts, and when they come off the bench, and show what they can do, they highlight their abilities. I’m really pleased for Novs to get that goal, he does a great job for us and the team. He’s probably been a bit frustrated in the last few weeks because he’s had to be patient but we know we have three strikers who can play the way we want to play, and bring others into the game. It can be a matter of seconds before they’re out on that pitch playing for us and trying to win the game. We have more than Novs knocking on the door though and know there are some good players in contention.
ON PETERBOROUGH LOOKING TO BOUNCE BACK FROM CONCEDING A LATE EQUALISER AT GILLINGHAM…
GA: They’ll want to perform as all teams do in front of their home crowd. We know they have good players in their squad, and we have to perform to a very good level to give ourselves the best chance of three points. That’s what we’re looking for, and we’ll try our best to get those. It’s such a competitive division and Saturday’s results will have highlighted that to everybody. It shows the quality throughout the division, and you have to be at it as often as possible to win games. We’re expecting a tough challenge and I’m sure they are as well.
ON INJURIES…
GA: Levi got a dead leg in training on Friday right at the end, while Cameron McGeehan and Clayton Lewis weren’t in on Thursday or Friday because of illness. We thought it was best to keep them at home and we didn’t want it passing on to the rest of the players. All three were in on Monday morning and come back into contention. We’ve got everyone else available, apart from Jordan Clarke (hamstring) and Jonathon Margetts (knee).
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