Still reserves high praise for his patched up side

Town were without the likes of Jonathan Smith, Paul Benson, Jake Howells, Luke Rooney, Paul Connolly and Alex Lawless, while Curtley Williams had to come off in the first half due to his ankle injury.

Still said: “It’s so difficult if I’m being honest and I’m not being funny, we couldn’t pick a team before the game.

“Jonathan Smith had a thigh strain, while we’ve got no right sided players. Paul Connolly’s trained this week and couldn’t play, Curt’s not 100 per cent so we went for three centre halves as we’ve got more of them than anywhere else.

“We were a little bit unbalanced and went for two young-uns in there again with Jim (Stevenson) and Pelly (Ruddock Mpanzu), without having help from a little bit of experience.

“Gutts (Luke Guttridge) was a bit higher, Alex Wall for a little bit of extra pace, we had to go long, so all of the things that we could do, we did.

“Then we lose Curt and we’ve had to go to a four (at the back) with Alex Lacey going to play right back as we’ve got no right back.

“Gutts has got to go wide because we have no wide players and literally we have no wide players.

“No Jake, no Rooney, Alex Lawless not available, Shaun Whalley has not even had a game.

“You put him on if you’ve got a gun to your head time, just to fill the bench, but it has been a problem.

“As we found last year you had to find a way of overcoming it, and the second half, we played Gutts out there, then we bought Robbo (Matt Robinson) on to do that job.

“It was all about everyone doing their job, doing the right job and fortunately everyone did the right job.

“You know what it does, it helps the young ones grow up quicker. Pelly in the second half was an unbelievable force and I think Jim grew in stature as well.”