31 October 2020

Alex Revell wants Stevenage to continue to play on front foot after Grimsby draw

31 October 2020

Stevenage boss Alex Revell has urged his side to keep being creative as their search for a second league win of the season goes on following a goalless draw with Grimsby.

The Boro have now gone seven matches without a win to leave them 21st in the League Two table and they were made to pay for a host of missed opportunities at home to Ian Holloway’s Grimsby.

The hosts had the lion’s share of chances throughout the game with Marcus Dinanga and Aramide Oteh both denied by an inspired James McKeown but, despite the result, Revell saw plenty of positives in the performance of his side.

“I’ve got to be honest, I love watching what they did,” Revell said.

“Yes it’s frustrating because you want the goal to go in, but we can’t do any more than that.

“I’m really proud of them because they put in a real shift. I really feel like it was a proper performance and all that was lacking was goals.

“We get frustrated because we want it to turn for the lads, but the worst you can do is not get into those positions, not have that determination to get on the end of a cross, so you’ve just got to keep believing.

“There’s not been many performances this year I’ve looked at and gone ‘I’m disappointed with that’ it’s just the fact we haven’t scored the goals. All we can do is keep working, keep creating them, and they’ll go in.”

The visitors had McKeown to thank as they held out for a point with James Hanson’s diving header the closest they came to troubling Jamie Cumming in the Stevenage net.

But, despite now being four games without a win in the league themselves, Holloway was quick to praise Stevenage for forcing the running of the game.

Holloway said: “James McKeown was back to himself, made a couple of great saves, which we needed him to do and at the end of the day, some of our selection, some of our passing is what I would want, but at the top end, it’s like a bunch of strangers.

“I’d have taken that yesterday. That was always going to be tough, I thought they [Stevenage] played well, they’re improving, so if ever there was going to be a day for it to go even worse for us it would have been today.

“At the end of the day, I want us to have a bit more understanding and a bit more cohesion going forward.

“There was lots and lots of good stuff and there was a fair bit of poor stuff, but I would like to suggest that Stevenage deserved that and forced us into that, rather than us being poor.”

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