Daws talks after draw at Oldham

Interim first team manager Tony Daws provided his reaction to Iron Player after United's 2-2 away draw at Oldham Athletic on Tuesday night.

After going behind early on, United turned the game on its head before half-time through goals from Joe Nuttall and Rob Apter.

The hosts levelled with a contentious penalty in the second half but Daws was again happy with his team's display as they made it five games unbeaten.

He said: "I'm really pleased with the performance but disappointed we've not won the game. I thought the lads were terrific and played some really good football.

"Again, we came from behind and showed resilience and character to control the game after we conceded funnily enough, passing the ball around and playing some good football, stretching and putting them under pressure.

"On the front foot is how I like my teams to play. I want to entertain the fans and my philosophy is attack and win the game, putting the opposition on the back foot. I felt we did that well tonight and we should have won 2-1.

"We look at the opposition and how they line-up and part of the plan was to put pressure on their first ball out, and we did that well - nicking it a couple of times and scoring from it.

"In the end though we're disappointed because I don't think it was a penalty and that's what got them a draw.

"The referee has a difficult job. Everybody thinks they know better than him or her. In this circumstance, had it been right in front of the Scunthorpe fans, it might not have been a penalty, but the Oldham fans were baying for blood and for me I felt their striker flicked the ball over his head, just lost control of it and took a gamble to go down, and they got the penalty. To be honest, I felt it was the wrong decision.

"Overall though, I felt it was a performance the fans could be proud of and we deserved to win."

Kgosi Ntlhe and Apter came off during the second half, with Daws saying: "Kgosi hadn't played for a few weeks and we tried to keep him on the pitch as long as we could. He started to cramp up a little bit so he had to come off, while Rob cramped up a lot in his calf and it was very painful for him as he could barely walk hardly so he had to come off. Both were enforced changes that we had to make."

He concluded by thanking the 406 Iron fans who travelled to Boundary Park, saying: "The fans were brilliant and I want to thank them for turning up in their numbers on a wet Tuesday night. They were vociferous and got right behind us."

See much more from Tony Daws and Andrew Boyce on Iron Player.