Stockport manager Dave Challinor praised the performance of striker Kyle Wootton, whose first-half brace sealed a comfortable 2-0 win for the League One promotion chasers at Exeter.
Wootton had the Hatters in front after 62 seconds with a typical poachers’ finish and he was the right man in the right place 20 minutes later with another tap-in to take him up to 12 for the season.
“If you are on a bad run in terms of goalscoring, then probably the safest thing to do is to find yourself as far away from the goal as possible, but the reality is to get yourself as close to the goal as possible,” Challinor said.
“That is where he scored his goals and I suppose that is when one becomes two, becomes three and you go on a run. Hopefully that is the case for him.
“It was a pretty routine win for us. Obviously we got off to a perfect start in terms of going in front and then we got the second goal, but if I am being ultra-critical, I would like more from us in the second half, in terms of control.
“We had two big chances at the start of that second half and the game is potentially different, but we looked comfortable at 2-0, but there are bits of improvement there. All in all though, it’s a really good result for us.
“It was always going to be difficult because the pitch is lively and you had two teams that, in normal circumstances, would want to take more risks and try and play through the lines, but that was always going to be difficult to do. It would have been stupid to take risks.”
Exeter barely threatened with another abject home display which left manager Gary Caldwell frustrated.
“We are better than that and we have showed that many times,” Caldwell said. “We just didn’t turn up at any point in the game.
“We gifted them a two-goal start and it was always going to be difficult against a team that is pushing for promotion.
“I tried to make changes throughout the game, but they went against us with Pat (Jones) coming off and Ed (Turns) coming off, but it was nowhere near good enough and we have to get better.
“We did that extremely well last week (winning 2-1 at Barnsley after losing 2-0 to Wrexham) and we are going to have to do the same again for Tuesday (against Wigan).
“I take responsibility. I got the team wrong and we had been debating the team, so I accept my part in that, but too many players are having to do more.
“When you are asked to play in a football game, the very least we expect is competing, running, fighting – we were far too easy to play against. We had no threat, no runs, no desire to play forwards and it was a boring second half, if I am being totally honest.”
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