Salford City manager Neil Wood gave his thoughts on Salford’s agonising penalty loss to Stockport County in the League Two play-off semi-finals on Saturday.
The Ammies head coach gave analysis on where he thought Salford came undone.
He said: “It was a really tough game. Credit to them they put a lot of pressure on us, a lot of diagonal balls coming in and it’s relentless, it’s difficult to defend against that and defending the second balls so credit to them for the way they played and put pressure on.
“I thought we had some chances in the first half. At the beginning of the second half, a little bit more composure, a little bit more nous on it and I think we take those chances and I’ve seen us this season take those chances. So obviously we’re disappointed. We wanted to get to the final and we thought we’d done enough just towards the end with the goal. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.”
He added: “I was looking on and we had a really dangerous forward line that we just knew that at any point, if we could get two or three passes and set them going, we were confident we could get something because the spaces were opening up really big and a few of their players were struggling at the back. So we tried to target that towards the latter stages of the game.”
After 120 minutes the two sides could not be separated requiring penalties, a harsh lottery especially for the loser.
The Salford boss noted his side were “prepped” for penalties and that they had “done everything we can in the last two weeks to prepare for that.”
He said: “It’s a cruel way to go out on penalties. We prepped for it, we did plenty of work on it and it just goes to show that you can do as much as you like, but it can happen, he can miss the target, the keeper can make saves, it happens and unfortunately, we’re the team that misses out today.
He added: “The only thing we couldn’t have prepared for was the crowd and the hostile atmosphere, when you’re walking up to that penalty, that feeling.”
Although the Ammies’ head coach was understandably disappointed, he spoke with great optimism for next season.
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— Salford City FC (@SalfordCityFC) May 21, 2023
He said: “I think we’ve made massive progress, not just on the pitch, but off the pitch the club is growing.
“I think for me and for the squad itself and for the club itself this is a new experience we’ve not been through this experience of playing in the playoffs in League Two, so we’ll be better for the experience. We will learn from it, we’ll evaluate it and hopefully you know, we come back next season.
He added: “My expectation is we come back stronger next season, we make improvements, and we go again, we have to go again.”
Wood continued to affirm that the ambitions of the club had not changed as he said the club is “still going to strive for success”.
He said: “I’ve had one season here, we’ve still not got it where we need it to be, but we’ve got a lot of talented players here that we just need to add around. I don’t think it needs major changes we just need to select the right players that complement what we’ve got.
“I think we can turn this as progress.”
He added: “we really wanted to get to Wembley so once we evaluate and speak to the players within the squad, then we can start looking at targets and start moulding the squad where we want it to be.”
The Salford boss finished by reflecting on his debut season at Salford and as a first team coach.
He said “I’ve loved every moment of it. It’s been a journey for me as well, so for me to get to this stage in a playoff game and take the experience of that, take the learning from that, it’s been massive for myself so I need to just reflect on it, I need to work on taking out the good bits and add to the bits that I can get better at and put that into place going into next season.”
The ex-Manchester United academy player and coach who joined Salford as head coach in the summer of 2022, has, so far, managed 57 games, winning 26, drawing 12 and losing 19 leaving him with a win rate of 45.6%
Seventh place is also the Ammies’ highest ever finish in the English football league.
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