David Artell faced the media following Sunday’s narrow FA Cup defeat to Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers at Blundell Park.
Despite bowing out of the competition, the Mariners boss expressed immense pride in his players’ efforts, reflected on a fiercely competitive cup tie and emphasised the progress being made both on and off the pitch.
Here’s everything he had to say on the following subjects…
on his assessment of the performance:
“I don’t think there was much in the game. I thought it was a proper old-fashioned, traditional cup tie and the pitch sort of made it like that. It didn’t help either team, really, but I think both teams adapted to it fine.
“I thought they got on top of us a little bit in the second half just by territory, without carving us open. We’ve limited a Premier League team, I think, to one shot on target. But we’re still disappointed.
“We’ve tried our utmost to try and win the game and we’ve come up a little bit short. I’m not sure we did enough to win it either, but when you look at the chances late on and the blocks the lads made, you’ve got to put it into perspective that we’re disappointed not to have taken it to extra time or even got a win.”
on the disappointment of exiting the competition:
“It’s still disappointing. My job is to win games of football and we had to play a different way today because of the pitch, I think everyone could see that. We don’t normally play like we did, but that’s what the conditions dictated.
“When we’re disappointed that we’ve lost to a Premier League team in the fourth round of the FA Cup, we know we’re doing something well. But it’s never nice to lose – professional pride and all the rest of it. The players aren’t chuffed and they don’t see the bigger picture right now because it’s raw.
“We’ll lick our wounds, move on, and now we can concentrate on the league.”
on coming close to a different outcome:
“With the exception of probably Adam Armstrong, Charles probably had the best chance of the whole game early on. Cookie’s had a header, Jamie’s had a volley from outside the box that was a brilliant block, and Ty’s had a chance right at the end with an unbelievable tackle to deny him.
“So we’ve created some moments, maybe not enough, but we’re talking about a Premier League team here. The fact we were in the game and pushing right until the last seconds shows we’re on the right track, even though we’ve come up a bit short.”
on what the occasion meant to the club and community:
“We’re trying to make the club, the area, the town, the fans and the community extremely proud of what we’re trying to achieve. Days like this are single watermarks, if you like.
“The league is much more important, but at the same time these games mean a lot, certainly to the fans and the community, and we’re trying to make them proud of what we’re building here.
“We apologise for coming up a little bit short, but I think you saw a group of players who are committed, who are trying their best, and on another day it might have been different. We want to do well for everyone associated with this football club and put the town back on the map.”
You can watch David’s post-match interview with the club media here:
Attention now turns firmly back to league action as the Mariners look to channel the positives from a memorable cup run into the promotion push. With confidence growing and standards continuing to rise, Town will be determined to respond in the right way and keep their momentum going in the weeks ahead.
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