Liddle wants Stanley to restore pride (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Liddle wants Stanley to restore pride

10:20am Tuesday 18th December 2012 in Sport By Andy Cryer, Blackburn Rovers reporter

MICHAEL Liddle has called for Accrington Stanley to put the pride back into the club this evening after Saturday’s “terrible” display.

Stanley travel to Oxford United in an FA Cup second round replay tonight, with Sheffield United awaiting the winners, on the back of a 2-0 home defeat to Wycombe Wanderers.

Defender Liddle knows the FA Cup is important financially to clubs like Stanley but, on the back of a five-match winless run, insists tonight’s trip to Oxford is about more than just money.

He said: “We’d been building towards it (Wycombe), we’d targeted these next few games and especially Saturday at home, it was a massive game that could kick-start our season if we could have won and put in a decent performance.

“But we played absolutely nothing like we can, we played terribly, we didn’t create anything, we didn’t defend well, we didn’t play well in any area, individually we were poor, collectively as a team we were poor.

“It was a bad day and we’ve just got to bounce back on Tuesday.

“Everyone knows the FA Cup is such a big thing for Accrington Stanley as a football club but now we’re looking at it as a team that we need to bounce back straight away from a performance like that and get back to trying to put on a good performance.

“Getting through to the next round of the cup will be an incentive but we just need to get back on the pitch and put in a good performance as a team, work hard together, work well together and try to get back to what we were, playing good football, and then kick on.”

Stanley travel to Oxford having lost 5-0 there in the league earlier this campaign, with last week’s replay postponed due to a frozen pitch.

Central midfielder Luke Joyce believes the trip offers his side the perfect opportunity to make up for Saturday’s showing.

He said: “We’re massively disappointed about the game but the good thing about football is we have a game now, it has come round quick and hopefully we can put it right.

“It’s a massive night for us as a club in general and we’ve got to stay as positive as we can because if we keep our heads down and stay disappointed it’s not going to do us any favours for this game.

“Nobody likes losing games, you’re disappointed, we’re not happy with the performance on Saturday or the result, whereas at Burton we were probably the better team and didn’t deserve to lose, but we did.

“We need to change that, you can’t get too down because there’s only us who can do anything about it, we need to keep our spirits high and keep believing in what we’re doing and keep trying to do the things that we’re good enough and hopefully the result will come soon.

“It will be the third time we’ve played Oxford this season and it’s not even Christmas yet but we’ve got a job to do and hopefully we can do that and get ourselves into the next round.”