Loan duo Jonathan Dinzeyi and Brad Young backed up Tuesday night’s Trophy starts with starts in the league on Saturday afternoon, with the players becoming the latest to begin the serious business of earning their trade with the Blues.
“It’s where we are,” manager Chris Beech said. “It’s difficult to pay for the 28-year-old answer. It’s through relationships that it happened with Rhys Bennett, but they’re difficult players to retain, and he’s playing in League One now.
“Jonathan got an opportunity in this game and he’ll learn from it. It was his league starting debut and it was also Brad’s, and he’ll learn from it as well.
“I thought Jonathan responded well, he did have shaky moments within that solid performance, it’s tying up that, you learn that in time.
“In terms of our shift, while he learns that, I want him to be learning in a winning team, not one that gets beat while he gets better. We have to be mindful of that.
“A lot of teams in the past have had that. Crewe would often not win many games over time, or when Dave Artell first got the job. They were allowed to lose, get stronger, grow and then become very good.
“Of course Jonathan’s not our player. While he’s in our remit, he adds to the defensive covers, and while he’s learning we still want to be winning. He was disappointed because he knows he was marking Matt for that goal, but he’s learned a lot within that game and he’ll grow from that point. While the learning takes place we want to be competing and winning. We have to be mindful of that
“Using these lads is what we do, what I’ve done. Often that’s dictated with outside factors, but it gives young players opportunity.
“Brad did great and it’s a shame he couldn’t really get his chance, and the chances he’d like to get shots off, but in terms of leading the line, holding the ball up, twisting and turning, bringing others into play and working hard, he did that ever so well.”
“I thought the players played very well, tactically we were good, and I think Gav [Skelton] ended up speaking to their staff while I did the press, and they were very complimentary of the first half because they couldn’t work us out,” he continued.
“They couldn’t figure out how to break us down, then the corner does that for them. It’s hard to take because it’s avoidable, but it’s happened.
“That’s that bit you’re talking about where the lads are working hard, playing well, getting in, whether it’s a foot, two foot, two inches wide of the net, that’s what happens, sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t, but you work on that all week.
“Gime Toure will finish with his right foot in training on Monday and it’ll go straight in the back of the net off that great ball from Brennan. It’s what happens. Normally you pay more money for the players that can do that regularly, and you have to try and find one to be the difference.
“There’s a team, an energy, a spirit, the way they played, what they represented, I would say it was much better and something to think about moving forwards. But we also know we’re in a position where you’ve got a situation with a couple of lads short, and two debuts taking place against league leaders.
“You ideally wouldn’t want to be in this position but sometimes it amounts to that – you make good choices to make the best things happen.
“We didn’t create those chances that would lead to goals and I think it was a little bit of trying too hard as well. They know as players they’ve had Forest Green on the back foot and felt ascendant in the game.
“You know that, like a boxer you feel your opponent, feel you’ve got a bit here. To be fair to them they stood strong, they’re a good team, physical, quick, technical, they normally would play more passes, but we didn’t allow it. We were good but just not good enough to beat them.”
