John Doohan was left hugely “frustrated” with his Accrington players’ inability to follow his instructions when defending set-pieces during Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Harrogate.
The Sulphurites opened the scoring when Jasper Moon headed in an Ellis Taylor corner and, although Josh Woods levelled things up just after half-time, the hosts sealed all three points thanks to a Josh March strike from the second phase of an attack which followed a free-kick.
And Doohan, who had warned his side what to expect from their hosts and tailored Stanley’s pre-game preparation accordingly, could not hide his disappointment after the final whistle.
“It’s very frustrating,” he said. “We worked on set-plays for a good 20-25 minutes on Friday. We knew what to expect, the long balls, the long throw-ins, corners and free-kicks. We knew what was coming, but it’s only taken them 19 minutes to score.
“Then, there’s a question whether it was even a free-kick for their second goal in the first place, which is disappointing. But then deal with it: the first, second and third phase. I go on about that all the time.
“Whoever is marking Josh March will say he was offside, but we don’t rely on referees and linesmen to make decisions for us. We deal with what we have to deal with and then we hope the flag goes up. You have got to deal with the situation, and we didn’t.
“We said about the importance of set-plays because you know what you’re going to get when you come here and it is disappointing because the second half was really good. We looked good on the eye, but we have lost the game.”
As annoyed as he was by his side’s defending at those key moments, Doohan was actually very encouraged by Stanley’s second-half showing.
“I thought that we were the better team in the second half by a mile,” he added. “We passed the ball a lot better, we just lacked that little bit of quality in the box.
“We have scored a good goal from a set-play ourselves, which is something that we have worked on, so a pat on the back for that.
“We controlled the game in the second half and had all of the possession, but we have lost.”
Reflecting on a victory which lifted his own team above Accrington in the Sky Bet League Two standings and 10 points clear of the relegation zone, Harrogate manager Simon Weaver said: “It’s a good win for us, I’m very happy.
“Credit to the players, they stuck to the task in what was another war of attrition and we have come out on top – and I think that’s because of the character of the team, they just kept on going.”
