That's Embarrassing - Knill

Last updated : 20 January 2007 By Bigrich.....
Knill was obvously downbeat when speaking to his post-match press conference after seeing his team lose for the third game on the bounce, leaving them 4 points from League 1 safety.

"I think that embarassing would be the right word to describe that, its maybe the first time that you can't defend the players. It's nothing to do with tactics or anything like that, its about making the right decisions and having the will to win, it was'nt us today, certainly in the first half." Knill said.

Knill also went on to question wether or not the team had the belief at the moment to pull themselves out of the mire, "Looking at that it does'nt look like the players had any belief, and we need to find it pretty quickly."

"When your in a relegation fight, it is a fight and thats what you need. You have to fight to get out of it, you can look as pretty as you like when youve got the ball but you have to stop people from playing and make the right decisions, but if you dont then your in trouble and that was a really poor performance."

"To be fair and it sounds silly, there was'nt anything in it until the first goal, the first goal goes in, a poor decision between the keeper and the left back, all of a sudden we go backwards."

"It takes men to get out of it and strong charactors, and if you havent got it, your in trouble. The reality has kicked in. I'm dissapointed for everybody thats travelled and everybody involved with Rotherham United because that's not a performance that warrents the name Rotherham United Football Club."

Speaking about Justin Cochrane's dismissal for 2 yellow cards, Knill had little sympathy. "He deserved to go, he had the opportunity to pass the simple ball but wanted to be clever and put it through Byfields legs and then theres a lunge, he had to go."

Asked if the performance made Knill want to go back to the board for more money to strengthen, "Any manager would say yes that we need more money, but the problem is that anybody looking at that performance would'nt want to come here. We've just took Hendo and Chris on, and they must think what the hell's going on here, on paper we look a decent team to come to but the reality is at moment we're struggling."

"We're struggling and I think its easy to hide behind confidence, we're struggling with strength of charactor at the moment and it needs big charactors to stand up and take control."

"I've got them but I need them to show it, it can't always come from the management, the players need to take some responsibility in themselves."


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