THE VERDICT

Reaction from the Gaffer as United lose out

There was no pulling punches from Michael Appleton as he talked about Saturday’s defeat against Southend to Yellow Player. 

“We have to dig deep” the United Head Coach said. “There are low points in seasons and we have just lost at home to ten men. We have to be bigger, we have to be stronger and we have to be more competitive in both boxes. We will be because we have to be. It’s our job to be.

“I don’t think we did the basics right. You have to give a lot of credit to Southend, going a goal behind and down to ten men just before half time. We tried to be really positive in the second half and stay on the front foot but we started the second half sloppily, got caught by a silly goal and that brought a little bit of anxiety into our play which didn’t help. We got punished for a bit of poor defending.

“To earn belief you have to do the basics right and if you make the basics look difficult - if you don’t complete your pass, if you don’t stop crosses, if you don’t get the ball into good areas of the pitch -then belief becomes very difficult.

“We’ll come in on Monday, speak to the players, work with them, and try and give them the belief that we can go and win games. We proved that earlier in the season and hopefully a couple of additions will help.”

See the full interview plus video reaction from Michael Collins and Jake Wright, only in Yellow Player.