'It has cut up a bit tonight. They are always concerned about the pitch because it does not get a lot of wind or light into the stadium. But it is fine at the moment. I think it will be okay until the winter months and we will assess it then.'
'It is a strange league. Everyone is fighting to survive because the only place to be is the Premier division and that is what we are seeing. There is very little between the teams at the moment, with quite a few low scorelines. But we will hopefully keep on doing our thing, play our football and keep our patience. I think then as the season goes on, we will get better.'
Steve McClaren was pleased with his side's performance despite the result.
'We did very well, we passed the ball and created a few things,' he said. There was a 20-minute spell where we couldn't get the ball. The last 20 minutes we finished very strongly.'
And the penalty Steve?
'I thought innocuous challenges like that happen. It wasn't blatant, it wasn't a pull back.'
'It's difficult to always come here and score,' he said. 'We kept our shape and we didn't lose heart. The last 20 minutes, maybe on another day we would have got something out of this game. When you get opportunities here they are very rare, you have to take them.'