Fleetwood manager Pete Wild rubbished talk of his side’s League Two play-off chances after Saturday’s crushing 4-0 defeat to Swindon, saying “We were never going to get to the play-offs.”
Goals by Kabongo Tshimanga, Miguel Freckleton, a Rhys Bennett own goal and a late contribution by Nnamdi Ofoborh were more than enough to see the visiting Robins take maximum points from this mid-table clash.
After a dismal result, Wild said: “If the players work as hard as they can and then we get beaten by a better side, I’ll always defend them.
“But today, we just didn’t see any fight, desire, passion, anything. We want to build on everything, so that the fans are seeing everything that we’re trying to be. We didn’t see any of it today and that’s why we’ve been beaten.
“And let’s give credit to Swindon today. I thought they came with a plan to stop us and stop what we could do going forwards and they did that to a team.
“Everybody keeps asking, when I want to speak to anybody, about play-offs – we’re never going to get into the play-offs, because it seems like the team’s got the same frailties that it’s had all season and the squad has got the same frailties it’s had all season.
“We get some weeks that are great and some weeks that are shocking and that’s what we’ve got today. And ultimately, this club’s not going to make the play-offs because we can’t find any consistency.
“With consistency, they would be right up there, but they don’t have it, they’ve not shown it.
“I think it’s rubbish and I never thought that this squad had the capabilities to go on and do that and all the stats from across the season show you that. And that might sound brutal, but I’m a man of facts.”
By contrast, his opposite number Ian Holloway was thrilled with his side’s performance, saying: “I think we utilised the spaces that they were giving us.
“We spoke at half-time about that and scored immediately from doing exactly what we said we would do.
“Every man out there won their battles, they didn’t flinch.
“We probably outran them on the stats, and definitely out-tackled them in my opinion. We asserted ourselves in the way that I want my team to do, with a level of skill as well – that was very pleasing.
“And keeping going is exactly what life’s about. You do your job until the end and you do it as well as you can – and that’s it.
“You don’t sit back, you don’t just think “oh, we can win this’. You don’t do that. Maybe they did that a bit today. You know, maybe this level is a bit like that – they’ve had two great results.
“And when you think you’re a good team, maybe. So all we can do is come out with how we think and what we need to do. And I felt we did it, to a man, every single one of them was absolutely brilliant today.
“I felt confident enough to give two young lads some more minutes. I certainly would have took that on Thursday night, when I found out one or two of these problems that we had with illnesses, but absolutely delighted.”
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