“At most, we deserved a draw. I don’t think we deserved to win the game today. City had a lot of the ball, a lot of possession but they never created much. We created a couple half chances and scored a great goal, but I think it’s the manner and the way we’ve lost it, from two set plays which is disappointing.
“Maybe we’re at a stage where the players are trying too hard and when you do that, you don’t relax and it’s frustrating because set plays have cost us three points.“
“We’ve said to the players for a while now, you’re never always going to be at your best technically, but what you can always have is a work rate, a desire – and we had that today. If you have that then you’ll always give yourself a chance.”
The manager also admitted his side were at their best whilst on the defensive, but lacked the cutting edge going forward.
“Today was one of those days where we weren’t great with the ball... We’ve created a lot of chances this year and we should have scored more, but I’m not worried about that aspect. I’m sure next week against hard opposition, we’ll go back to controlling the ball a little bit better.”
While Gibson wants lessons to be learned from this performance, he also wants training to begin positively this week, as preparation begin for Sunday’s Sky Sports Cup final versus Rangers.
“We need to come into training tomorrow with smiles on our faces and throughout the week, because they’ve achieved something already with getting to the final, but how do we now take that achievement and go one step further and win it? That’s now the target.”
“The minute we step into training tomorrow, we need to see smiling faces and people excited for a big week ahead.”
