Stuart Pearce has given his reaction to wednesday night's frustrating 0-0 at home to Portsmouth.
In a game of few clear-cut chances, David James made saves from former colleagues Joey Barton and Ishmael Miller, while a great stop from Nick Weaver denied Matt Taylor.
Pearce said: “I can’t fault their endeavour, I think we deserved to get more out of the game than we did. Nicky Weaver, the two centre-halves, the two forwards were all outstanding for me. With the rest, I can’t look at them and say that they haven’t put a shift in for me.
“We have got to get a bit cuter passing the ball, and once we get one or two of our new faces up and running, I think we’ll have no problems.
“We’ve kept a clean sheet, we are disappointed not to have won but we’ll build on this.”
The game’s main talking point came early in the second half, when Ben Thatcher’s challenge on Pedro Mendes riled the visitors and saw the Portuguese midfielder stretchered off.
Of the incident, Pearce stated: “Ben’s at sprinting speed, and when you run at that velocity if you get anything slightly wrong, it’s going to look awful. There’s no doubt that he’s caught him, I’ve not had the luxury of watching it again but I don’t want to see any player injured.
“Ben’s been in to ask about him after the game, and we wish and hope that he’s fine.”
