Despite his team winning 3-1, Hereford FC manager
Peter Beadle was very unhappy that striker Mike Symons received a nasty injury
to his knee from a defender who Beadle felt should have been sent off earlier
in the game.
"It's a kick on the knee from a player who
shouldn't have been on the pitch," said Beadle in his post match
interview.
"It frustrates the life out of me. We come
here, we have to come here as part of this competition.
"Last pre-season I didn't want to play any of
the local teams for obvious reasons, my
own one is that it's just for them to get their pound of flesh and tonight the
full back should have been yellow carded in the first half for a tackle on
Pablo, and yellow carded again for another tackle on Pablo.
"Then he got a yellow card and then he gone through Mike and Mike has got a nasty cut on his knee.
"He's caught him with his boot on his knee,
what sort of challenge was it.
"It's not fair, it's not fair on us because,
like I said, we come here to play the game as well as we can and every time you
get one or two who start getting stupid as though it's their moment to kick
lumps out of us.
"Unfortunately we have to come here in this
competition so we have to come and play the game.
"The injury is more impact but it's
frustrating the way it came about.
"He will be fine Saturday. It looks worse than
it was.
"It's a cold night and he's just come on so
he's not at full tilt, not up to body temperature as he should be when he's
playing but it's caught him flush across the knee.
"I'm sure he'll be fine for the weekend."
Of the game itself.
"It was fairly comfortable, certainly first
half," said Beadle.
"Second half we didn't quite have the same
effect as we did first half and they
could have quite easily got back into the game with their goal and then what
looked like could be a penalty and one right on the edge of the box as well.
Quite controversial towards the end.
"I felt we did enough with the chances we had
to win it, I'm happy to get through it."
Beadle selected a strong line-up for the tie.
"Me, Jenks and Jonny were all nearly on the
bench, that shows how short of numbers we were for tonight.
"Again there were one or two that could have
probably played tonight but we didn't want to risk them because they've been
out which is why we changed the format a little bit.
"There were a couple of lads that weren't
available tonight who would have played but they had other committments before
this game was rearranged.
"We were quite a few short tonight but I'm
pleased with what they have done.
"We changed the shape a little bit so that was
interesting to look at. In spells it worked quite well and other times you can
see that it has its deficiencies as well. It gives us food for thought.
"I like the shape we have, I think it works
best for the players we have. I don't think three at the back quite suits at
the moment. That's not to say going forward in the future we wouldn't use it. I
think it's one of them you have to be open-minded.
"With the youth team we swore by 4-3-3 which
we played with the first team for a little while but now I much prefer 4-4-2
because of the players we've got.
"You set up your team to play to their
strengths and we're probably better off as 4-4-2 with the team we have.
"It was good to see it and at times it worked
quite well."