Jason Steele says he understands the fans’ frustration after last night’s defeat on penalties to Charlton Athletic in the Carabao Cup.
The 32-year-old revealed the players spoke before the game about the 6,000 supporters expected at The Valley and that the squad were desperate to give them a Christmas gift in the form of a victory.
He said, “We spoke about the fans coming up and we’re so frustrated that we couldn’t turn that domination into something more. We wanted to give them something to be cheery about going home for Christmas and unfortunately we couldn’t do that. I think that they could see signs though that we’re a proper team and we’re going to get better.
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“The defeat feels very raw, I thought we played really well and dominated from start to finish. But when you go to penalties, anything can happen. You could see the atmosphere changed when it went to penalties.
“That’s what happens, there’s nobody to blame, it is what it is. We’re a team, we win together and we lose together. We will be fine, we will get the defeat out of our minds.”
The former Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers keeper believes that the match will have helped the players shake off the ring rust ahead of the Boxing Day clash with Southampton.
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“The Charlton game was a totally different challenge to what we face regularly in the Premier League. There are not many teams that would defend like that in the top tier and we still created a lot of opportunities.
"I wouldn’t say we had loads of clear-cut chances, but we got into really good areas that we work for every day. The next step is to be ruthless and we have to be that.”