We spoke to Paul Simpson following today’s defeat against Derby County.
“It was a disappointing end to the season but I thought the level of performance was ok,” he said. “We talked about trying to keep it tight early on and see if we could make them a bit nervous, because there was a nervousness around the ground which is normal.
“It was a fantastic strike from Bird, I’ve got to give him that. I can complain that we allowed him to come inside but I think it’s a great strike and I don’t think Harry had much chance with it.
“After that I thought it settled us down and we managed to play and pass the ball well. We had a bit of control without really creating good chances.
“Their second goal is a real sucker punch because it was a straight ball, and we didn’t deal with it. Derby do that well, they put balls in the box and cause you problems with their big lads. They win first contact and you’ve got to be prepared to go and win the second ball.”
“I thought our players went about it in the right way and we passed the ball even though we didn’t create a lot apart from set plays,” he continued. “I thought some of the set play deliveries were very good and we got into good areas, but we didn’t work the goalkeeper enough.
“That has been the story of our season. It was disappointing not to be able to hold them out for longer, but sometimes there’s not a lot you can do when Bird puts that quality strike in. We started to get a bit of control in the game after that goal and we had some decent bits of possession.”
Paul Huntington and Aran Fitzpatrick both pulled out of training on Friday which meant United only had six substitutes on the bench, and Simmo explained: “We picked the team before training yesterday. We did the warm-up then went into some bits of football and Hunts couldn’t continue because his calf was sore.
“He was one of the players who missed the early part of the week after coming on as a sub for that short period last weekend. He trained on Thursday, but he said it was too sore and he couldn’t travel on Friday.
“Aran Fitzpatrick got a kick in a tackle and rolled his ankle so he had to be carried off the pitch. We had started the day with 19 fit players to travel so we just had to come with 17 in the end.
“I don’t like doing that but we looked at the youth team players and Josh O’Brien had got a whack on his knee so he’s going for a scan, and Sam Hetherington wasn’t fit because of a whack in the ribs. If you take a first year who is only 16 or 17, you’re then into safeguarding issues and you’ve got to tick loads of boxes, so we chose to go with just the 17 players. As I say, I don’t like doing it because it feels disrespectful to the youth team, but it was the situation we were in.”
With over 1,700 Blues fans in attendance, the gaffer praised their support: “I get the pitch invasion at the end, but I’m disappointed that we weren’t able to go over and thank the fantastic supporters we had here today.
“Even at the end of the game, they were still there applauding the players and singing. They deserved to be thanked by us, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to do it. I get it, I know their fans are always going to come on when they get promoted, it was just a shame we couldn’t go over and acknowledge our own supporters.
“They were magnificent again. It was difficult to hear them above the noise of the home fans but we did hear them. We massively appreciate them coming here and supporting us today and all season.
“I’ve just said to the players in there, we’ve had a go today, but these are the occasions you have to aspire to. There’s a little bit of a feeling similar to when we went down at Doncaster in my first time here where we’re saying to the players that they have to want to be part of these occasions like we’ve seen for Derby today. I hope history will repeat itself and we can be part of these occasions next season. The work starts now to get us in a position to do that.”
“The retained and released list will come out on Monday,” he confirmed. “It’s never a pleasant day but you sometimes have to have difficult conversations as a manger and there will be some difficult conversations on Monday.
“We can’t be sentimental about anything, we have to get a group of players together who are going to take this club forward. Not just next season, but the season after. We have a rebuild job to do and we have to make sure we set our stall out in pre-season to show that we’re ready to go and compete at the top end of the table and make sure we are worthy of the support we’ve had this season.”
