Cheltenham Town’s good start to the season came to a halt with defeat to Accrington Stanley.
The Robins sat second in the table before the game, but were beaten 2-0 by the home side, who worked hard and thoroughly deserved the win.
The game was made worse late on when Cheltenham midfielder Charlie McCann was sent off for two challenges that earned him two yellow cards, the second of which was very soft and means he now serves a one-game suspension.
After the game, manager Steve Cotterill criticised some of the refereeing decisions; he said: “Didn’t probably do enough to win it. Ended up losing the game on the back of winning a game last week we didn’t deserve to win – that’s what happens in this game. I thought the referee made a couple of big calls today that he got wrong, badly wrong. Charlie McCann’s first yellow: he put his arm into his chest. It’s not anything. But if he’s going to get booked, we’ll take that one as the booking. The second one, he has both feet on the ground; you can see it clearly and I’ve just looked at it. He hasn’t gone anywhere near the player. Their player has gone down, and before that, there were a few shouts; they were trying to get Charlie another yellow card anyway, which is disappointing. We won’t do that. We are not going to do that.
“For the second goal, from a corner, before that we were on a really good counter-attack and one of their players trips one of their players up and they get a free-kick. The free-kick comes into our box; we defend it, they end up scoring from the resulting corner. They are big moments, and it’s as clear as day. He trips over his own player.”
The disappointing decisions affected the outcome of a difficult game for Cotterill’s side after a really positive start to the campaign.
Accrington set up defensively, something Cheltenham haven’t seen too much of this season, and they needed to be better in attack in those situations. Cotterill admitted his side didn’t do enough.
He continued: “They sit in a back five, bank in, and we didn’t work them enough in the final third today, where we’ve worked teams enough previously. We didn’t get enough of a look at their goal today, but when you’ve pinned them in, there is a back five there, at least two holding midfield players and maybe another midfield player there. We could have done better in those areas, but we’ve done better in those areas last week with not so much of a look at the goal. That’s what happens. We kept probing and I thought the game had 0-0 written all over it. For them to win 2-0, that is flattering.
“We get a point today, we end up being top of the table. If you are 0-0, you think ‘okay’, but we got beaten trying to win the game. Invariably that’s what happens. They end up having an interception, they get a big ball inside Jonathan (Tomkinson), who is not quite on the cover enough, and then they get a goal off the back of it. There is not a lot we can do about it now. We just have to keep going. On days like today, or games like last week when you beat Chesterfield, they don’t make you stronger; it’s days like today that make you stronger. I’ve seen enough of them in there to know they have a good spirit, and they will carry on fighting. They got lucky with their two goals today; that’s it for me. We lost today’s game, but I wouldn’t swap one of my players, not one of them.”
Cheltenham will look to bounce back and pick up where they left off at home when they next face Salford City, who themselves sit top of the league after a great start.
Cotterill and Co have their work cut out for them to beat the team owned by former Manchester United full-back and Sky Sports commentator Gary Neville.
Cheltenham lose to Accrington Stanley
