Manager post Rangers
Friday, 13th Aug 202113/08/21: link to audio of Peter Grant’s post match comments
- - Listen to this Peter Grant interview
Dunfermline manager Peter Grant summed up the 5-0 defeat to Rangers at Ibrox as a “massive disappointment’. Speaking after the match he told the media:-
“We never got started and it continued on really tentatively and as I said prior to the game you never know how players are going to respond. We gave the first goal away cheaply through a bad decision, the thing we spoke about.
“We progressively got worse and we never got a foothold at any time. In possession and out of possession we were very poor. People could say Rangers played well but we were way, way off the mark if you are playing against quality players.”
Losing the first goal as early as the third minute didn’t help trying to get a foothold in the game?
“One hundred per cent, when you come to any place like this you have to give yourself an opportunity, we never did that. It was a really poor decision from no danger. From then on having gone at one behind we gave Rangers a little bit of a lift when people were probably saying that they were under a bit of pressure.
“You don’t mind if someone plays well and tears you apart and create an opportunity themselves, by when you make it for them and then as I say we just got progressively worse as the game went on. I thought we were very poor. People might say Rangers were very good but I just thought we were so poor.”
Did you feel that you didn’t get a reaction from the players after going behind so early?
“Rangers never let you. If you give the ball away to good players that is what is going to happen. We just made so many wrong choices which we spoke about prior. You just get annoyed because you see them and you talk to them about last week and their approach this week has been excellent but then all of a sudden people are asking prior to the game ‘how do you prepare for coming to places like this’ and you can’t prepare for it. You have to wait until the game is going to kick off and see how our players respond and how they react.
“Our reaction to going behind was very very poor. We did not retain the ball, we didn’t do the basics well, we made the wrong choices, we rushed things and it looked like a team that I didn’t know. That disappointed me more than anything else so you are right, you have to look for the reaction that we didn`t get.
“I just thought that we were very very tentative and I know what it is like, I got humped 5-1 here when I played! I know what it is like so I know when you are suffering at times, then you have to do the basics well and we were a million miles away from even the basics. That was really disappointing but as we say this is a game that obviously we were looking forward to. We thought we could do something in the game, we wanted to show people that we were a good side, unfortunately we just didn’t turn up.”
You changed things at half time, did you feel that it went better in the second half?
“No. I just thought that we were poor for the whole game. We were okay in certain things but as I say if you don’t retain the ball - at the end of the day, we have the same number of players on the pitch. We made so many wrong choices and were tentative in everything we did. The all round performance was a million miles away.”
Obviously the supporters will be hurting after this, how important to get a real response in the Fife Derby?
“The supporters are hurting? What about the players? We represent the supporters the way we try and play. I think the players are hurting and they should be hurting. The supporters come to support their team but we never gave the supporters a chance tonight.
“We are very disappointed for them but at the end of the day we are the ones who have to try and excite them and entertain them as I have said many times. We just didn’t do that tonight.
“As I say it is mind blowing some of the decisions that were made tonight. We are really disappointed with that. We can only apologise, I don’t care if it is Ibrox, we should have put on a much better performance than we did tonight.”
Was there an honest conversation in there with the boys, you say that they were hurting?
“They wouldn’t be playing for me if they weren’t, that’s for sure. I hope they are hurting, I hope that they are suffering. I know, I can see it but there is a game face that you can put on but hurt means learning from it, that is the biggest thing.
“You have got to learn and if you are not willing to learn and keep making the same mistakes constantly then we have to make sure that we pick the right players for the right games. That is what we have to do and we will just see what the reaction is over the next few days.
“I know what I am expecting, I got the same reaction last week after a really disappointing result but at the end of the day you have to produce on the football park on a Saturday or a Tuesday or on a Friday as it was this evening. We just haven’t done that and we have to start doing that very very quickly.”
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