Dowie made some changes to his side and was looking for the player coming in to seize the chance to maybe clinch a place in the team for the play offs, but they left him disappointed and he said, “There were people who were handed opportunities today but they didn't tae them. It certainly wasn't complacency but if we play with that laissez-faire attitude then we may get hurt.
“I would love to have had Andy Johnson playing today but he's had a few bumps and bruises since he came back and Clinton Morrison and Jon Macken aren't bad players, they just didn't gel.
“We didn't show much in terms of attacking threat but we defended well and had a few fantastic opportunities to nick a goal on the break. It looks like we're playing catch up but we'll keep going until the end of the season because there's everything left to play for and we certainly don't feat anyone.”
Steve Cotterill though was pleased with his side after this game but thought we deserved to take all three points. “We had chances in the first half, with Chris McCann's effort the closest, and we felt we also had chances in the second half. We're disappointed we haven't taken all three points and we probably deserved to win the game in the end.
“A couple of times when we were clean through, maybe we could have made better decisions, and we would have made those better decisions on another day. Other than that, I didn't feel as though we were probably as dominant in the first half as we were in the second. It almost looked as if it took us the first half to get going.”
Chris McCann was substituted just a few minutes before half time but the manager thought it was not too serious. “I don't think he has pulled his hamstring, I just think that it tightened up on him. He's a young man who is still growing and developing. He's got week long breaks now between the next two games and we are hoping he is okay.”
On the current run he added, “We are not downbeat, we have conceded one goal in six games, and that was an own goal. We are quietly pleased at how we are finishing the season at the moment. We still have another two games and we want to be looking at taking maximum points from those games to finish as high as we can.”
Supporters were far from happy a year ago when there were no Easter fixtures, but Steve was somewhat upset at having to play two games in the three day period. “I don't know why we have to play two games in three days, it is ridiculous,” he said. “People pay their hard earned money to come to a football match and be entertained, yet the lads are tired, and you cannot change all eleven. We don't want to change our eleven and
“I would rather we played on Good Friday, as the lads would have had an extra day's break before the Palace game. I don't know whether it would have made a difference but other teams played on the Friday and it gave their lads a chance to get over knocks.”
He does have a point in that teams such as Preston, Ipswich and Crewe came up against teams yesterday that had had an extra day's break between games but I wonder just how we would have coped with the old Easter programme of games on Friday, Saturday and Monday.