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Keates looking for immediate reaction

18 September 2018

Club News

Keates looking for immediate reaction

18 September 2018

Manager Dean Keates will be looking for an instant reaction from his side when the Saddlers head to the Kassam Stadium to play Oxford United.

The Saddlers' unbeaten league start ended with a 4-1 defeat by Doncaster - and Keates admitted his team weren't good enough on the day.

But moving forward, the 40-year-old is confident his side will bounce back from that disappointment.

“It is all about the reaction now,” Keates said.

“We have got off to a decent start, got ourselves in a good position.

“A defeat was always going to come at some stage. We will now have a good week’s training and we will make sure we go down to Oxford and give a good performance and hopefully get ourselves three points."

Reflecting on the Donny defeat, Keates felt his team missed two big chances at important times in the game.

"We had a couple of opportunities where we should have maybe been 1-0 up in the first nine minutes," he added.

"Josh Ginnelly had a good chance but then they got back to one each. It was deserved.

“We then had the opportunity in the second half to score again but the keeper has pulled a good save off but if I am honest, we need to make sure that goes in the back of the net.

“We need to take the back of the net off the goal."

The boss reverted back to his favoured 4-4-2 formation against Rovers, with Andy Cook and Kieron Morris recalled to the starting XI.

“We watched Doncaster and I thought that was best formation we could go with.

“It is tried and trusted, the lads know their roles and responsibilities.

“We have worked on other things this week and looking at it for this match, I thought that was our best opportunity to go and win the football match.

“As I have said, we weren’t good enough, and we will look back on this, including myself.”


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