Alfie Beestin draws on Wrexham positives

Iron midfielder Alfie Beestin reflects on the week gone by and looks ahead to Boxing Day’s game against Chesterfield.

The 25-year-old began by speaking about Wednesday's FA Trophy defeat to Wrexham: "I thought we played a very good game to be honest, created a lot of chances, and I think they were lucky to get the win.

"We didn’t get there until 8pm, had a ten minute warm up, and then to go into the lead against Wrexham showed that we’re building something here. We’re putting in better performances, and I feel like we deserved to at least take it to penalties, but it just wasn’t our day."

Reflecting further on the delayed arrival at the Racecourse Ground, Beestin said: “We hadn’t eaten for like seven hours, whereas normally we’d eat at 4pm, so it was something new and we just tried getting as much as we could down us.

"It didn’t really affect us [at the beginning] as we had a nice quick start, but towards the middle of the game that’s when we started to get stitches. It affected us but I still feel like we put in a good performance.

"We want to show character. We know we aren’t in the best place at the moment, but we’re doing all we can to put in good performances for the team."

Michael Nelson’s appointment as interim manager has seen the introduction of Fin Shrimpton to the team, with Beestin spoke about his fellow midfielder's influence: “It’s been class. I’ve said from the start that Fin has been class. He’s deserved his chance and now he’s had his chance and taken it. He doesn’t look out of place and in fact he looks like one of our best players.

"He knows what it means to be from Scunthorpe. He’ll know what the fans are feeling, and you can tell with the tackles that he puts in, that he puts 100 per cent into everything."

Looking ahead to the double fixture against Chesterfield, he added: "They’re one of the top teams. They’ve got a lot of money, and they’ve brought in a lot of players so it’ll be a tough game. However, if we keep putting performances in, like we have done in the past two games, then I think we will do alright.

"I’ve always said that the better the team the better I play. I think as a team it suits us better too, as we’ve been playing a lot more football on the ground lately.” 

Finally, Alfie spoke about the 47 Iron fans who travelled to Wrexham: "It’s a credit to them. The traffic would have affected them as well so we appreciate every fan who came along.

"We appreciate all the support, and we want as much as we can. On Boxing Day they can be our twelfth man for us to try and get that win that they and we deserve.”