‘We could have won the game. We were as good as them’

WATCHING over you: manager Paul Dickov takes it all in as Athletic slip to defeat.

EVEN a long way from being at their best, Athletic manager Paul Dickov felt his side could have claimed all three points against Brentford.

A smart volley from Jonathan Douglas and a breakway strike from substitute Myles Weston gave the visitors a fourth straight away victory at Boundary Park.

The Bees had to do without the services of centre-back Miguel Llera for the final half-hour as he was sent off for picking up two yellow cards.

But despite going close — lively Reuben Reid forced a superb save from Richard Lee with the game scoreless — it was a deserved win for Dickov’s good friend and former team-mate Uwe Rosler and his impressively organised outfit, who stifled the home side.

“It is hard to play against 10 men, but we should have made better decisions when we had the ball,” Dickov said

“Against 11 men we want to get the ball to our wide players and stretch teams and up until the final 10 minutes we didn’t do that enough.

“But we also had more than enough chances to win the game. That is the disappointing thing. We say to the boys that when you are not playing well, give yourselves a chance and keep yourselves in the game.

“The goals they scored were sloppy from us. If you are not playing well you try to grind out a result and we were creating chances.

“We know they are a good team, one of the favourites to go up and rightly so.

“But the disappointing thing for me is, I feel we could have won the game. We were as good as them.

“They did the horrible little things in the game better than we did.”

The adverse result drops Athletic a place to 12th in npower League One, ending a mini-run of two straight wins away from home.

What it also does, though, is extend a worrying run. Including games from last season, and with the caveat that the side is much-changed since then, Athletic have now only won one of the last 15 matches played at Boundary Park.

Dickov, though, believes that comparing home and away form is a red herring: “I don’t know if it is that we have won two games and the boys think they are better than they are,” he added.

“Maybe I am to blame for that as I am constantly telling them how good they can be.

“I don’t see why they should struggle at home or away. We want to play the same way, win games and pass the ball and score goals.

“I don’t go with the idea that teams can’t play at home or teams can’t play away.

“From start to finish, we dropped the standards that we set at Walsall and Orient.

“You always hear me bang on about consistency. And I have to get to the bottom of why we can go away from home and get two really good, solid, professional performances and then put in a performance like this.”