Wayne Rooney felt his team deserved all three points after his first home league game as manager ended in a 1-1 draw with Hull City in front of a sell-out crowd at Home Park.
Ibrahim Sissoko gave the hosts the lead early in the second half when he took advantage of a questionable defensive move by City, but the advantage lasted only nine minutes.
Tigers captain Lewie Coyle stormed the ball to the edge of the box before exchanging passes with Liam Millar on the edge of the box before unleashing a curling left-foot shot that ricocheted off the post and into the net. Rooney admitted to being impressed by the goal.
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Rooney’s side, who had recovered well from their 4-0 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday last Sunday, had chances to win the game but could not find a way past Ivor Pandur. On the other hand, City had moments when manager Tim Walter felt his team could have done better.
“I felt like we probably did just enough to win the game so I’m a little bit disappointed we didn’t get three points but it’s important not to lose by not winning a game so there are a lot of positives to take from last week,” explained the Pilgrims boss.
“I thought we had real energy, commitment, aggression at the right moments and created some good chances. That was the only thing we really didn’t do consistently enough. I’ll be working on that with the players this week, we need to be more consistent.”
“Hull are a very difficult team to put under pressure because of the way they play. I’ve never seen the centre backs dribble and rotate around the pitch. They can be really difficult to play against and I think we did a good job of that, especially at the start.”
“We tried to set traps and win the ball back high up the pitch, which we managed to do, but we had a bit more time than we thought and we rushed it at the end. I think if we had scored in the first 10-15 minutes when we won the ball back and had good chances, then it would have been a very difficult game for Hull.”
“Overall one point, we missed and I’m happy with the game for the most part. Of course there are always things we can improve as well. It’s a great shot so I think there’s nothing we can do about that. It’s about the details of how he gets there and that’s game management too. I think maybe Forshy (Adam Forshaw) can get a foul and stop the game.
“I think that’s what Hull are trying to do. Their right-back is on the other side of the pitch in position 10 and he shot the ball into the top corner with his left foot. They try to draw your players into areas and that’s the concentration we can improve.”
“They tried to force us out of our positions and I thought we did that quite well for the most part, but towards the end when we got a bit tired we let that happen. That’s something we can improve on too. We need to look at the details of the goal and try to improve. The goalkeeper Conor obviously had no chance on the shot.”
