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https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/what-steve-cotterill-wants-cheltenham-11207651

 

What Steve Cotterill wants from Cheltenham Town team after Fleetwood Town win, plus praise for Leicester City loanee Kirsten Otchere and Jordan Shipley
Cheltenham Town 4 Fleetwood Town 2

Jon Palmer Football Writer
 

I am delighted. You can pick really, really good and bad out of it can't you. After the weekend, this is a really difficult game because they are a good team, well-coached. Been at it a little now, a few of their players and together a lot longer than we have, so a fair bit of continuity, so credit to them. But this was a really awkward, dangerous game for us tonight. While it wasn't a 4-1 game on Saturday, the bottom line is the result said 4-1. When you have to come to a home game then, a couple of days later, I can't thank the lads enough tonight for their efforts and what they've done. Tonight took a lot of courage to go out there, when you have just been beaten 4-1. Until that's ever happened to you, you don't quite know how you feel about receiving every pass, competing for every ball, taking every shot, going for every header, it takes a lot of courage and I thought our boys showed a lot of courage tonight. Even more when the result got back to 3-2 because that showed immense courage. We could have easily buckled because they are in the ascendancy, the whole crowd gets nervous, the team gets nervous, everyone gets nervous. We were looking to make the change just before they got it back to 3-2. Then you want it to settle down a little bit again, then we made a change at the end, probably just to lock the game up because we have now gone Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday and now we have to make sure we rest and recover really well for the weekend.

Kirsten Otchere's first goal, a nice moment for him after you showed a bit of faith in him putting him in there tonight

Yes, he deserved that because he's done really well in training, still have to bear in mind he's still a young lad so he'll be up and down, up and down. That's his first EFL goal so the lads have given him a round of applause in there. That's really good for him and we have been delighted with him. He's a really quiet boy, Kirsten, and we are trying to bring him out of his shell a little bit. The lads like him, they are just not quite sure how to take him sometimes because he's a bit vacant and doesn't smile enough! He doesn't show you enough emotion, but I am sure there is plenty in him.

 

Jordan Shipley and Kirsten Otchere seemed to link up well on the left

I thought Shipley was excellent tonight and I am really pleased for him. That's more like it from him. I am pleased it happened because we've been waiting a while for it. He's probably been waiting a while as well. He was good tonight, Shippers, so I am really pleased for him. The two centre-halves alongside him were excellent. I know we've conceded two goals, but the whole back four were excellent tonight, with Freddy and Ben in front of them, I thought they were excellent. The front four, with Charlie, Kirsten, Andi and Jake pressing like they can press, it'll stick teams on the back foot and that's why we got ourselves into that 3-0 lead. The next goal was always tricky and we spoke about that at half-time. It happened on Saturday, Oldham were 3-0 up, we scored a goal and all of a sudden we needed one of those other chances to go in, they would have got really nervous. It's funny how it goes, they lost 3-0 tonight. It's a strange one. We get beat 4-1 and win 4-2 tonight. They win 4-1 and lost 3-0 tonight. A crazy league, and goes to show what a long season it is.