McCall hails ‘outstanding’ Alnwick as Scunthorpe claim points at Bristol Rovers
Posted Sunday, November 18, 2018 by PA
Scunthorpe boss Stuart McCall reflected on the narrow margins between success and failure after goalkeeper Jak Alnwick starred in a vital 2-1 win over Bristol Rovers.
Alnwick produced an outstanding diving stop to keep out a first-half shot from Liam Sercombe, twice denied Rovers in one-on-one situations, and saved a Chris Lines penalty two minutes before Matt Lund struck the visitors’ 78th-minute winner.
McCall said: “It’s such fine lines in football sometimes and I can understand if Rovers are feeling frustrated.
“One moment they have a penalty and look like winning the game, the next we go up the other end and get the winner ourselves.
“My goalkeeper has been outstanding and we have had to withstand a lot of pressure at a place where it is never easy to get anything.
“We lost Ryan Colclough in the first half to what looks a nasty knee injury and had to show a lot of character to achieve a really important result.”
Rovers claimed bitterly at the time that Lee Novak’s opening goal, fired home from close range on 15 minutes, should have been disallowed for offside.
But home boss Darrell Clarke chose to make nothing of it after the game and McCall insisted: “I have seen the incident again and it was clearly onside.”
Sercombe fired Rovers level in the first-half stoppage time added for Colclough’s injury, beating Alnwick with a sweet right-footed shot from a Tom Nichols cross.
The home side looked set for all three points when Stefan Payne went down inside the box after 76 minutes and referee Lee Collins pointed to the spot.
But Alnwick anticipated the direction of Lines’ spot-kick and dived to his right to save.
Before Rovers could recover from that setback their former loanee Lund burst into the box and the midfielder saw his deflected shot loop over goalkeeper Jack Bonham for the decisive goal.
It left a hugely frustrated Clarke admitting: “We had loads of chances and scored one goal. They had two opportunities and took them both.
“End of story. We have to be more clinical in front of goal if we are to climb the table and it’s as simple as that.
“I have said for some weeks now that we are involved in a relegation battle and that won’t change unless we become more ruthless.
“Today our approach play was better and we probably deserved to win the game on the balance of play. But that counts for nothing.
“We work hard on finishing on the training ground, but it is very difficult to instil confidence in strikers who are on a dry run.
“I don’t foresee much happening transfer-wise in January, so we have to keep on working to improve the current squad.”
- Tag:
Photos
More»
Meet Jude Bellingham's stunning girlfriend Laura
Thursday April 25 2024
[PICTURE SPECIAL] Man Utd 4 - 2 Sheffield United
Thursday April 25 2024
[PICTURE SPECIAL] Arsenal 5-0 Chelsea
Wednesday April 24 2024
Your Say