Scott Brown: Route one is wrong direction for Fleetwood

After a successful pre-season, Brown's first EFL fixture in charge ended in a 2-1 defeat at Port Vale and the head coach was disappointed to see his players resort to long-ball tactics in the second half.

And the former Celtic midfielder, a 10-time Scottish Premiership winner, wants to see more fight from his players at times of adversity.

One such time was at half-time on Saturday, when Fleetwood found themselves behind after leading through Dan Batty's early strike.

“The reaction wasn’t good enough,” said Brown. “When we go 2-1 down, we started going long, we started going direct and that’s not the football match I wanted to see.

“Port Vale are a physical team. They won a lot of their 50-50s on the second balls as well. That’s not what I want to see from our football team.

“Between our defence, midfield and strikers, there were so many gaps it was easier for them to play through and collect the second balls.

“We started well because we passed the ball and we used the width of the park.

“Second half we didn’t try to play. We weren’t brave enough.

“I know there were a lot of stoppages and they slowed the play down. But for us the intensity and the reaction to go and get the ball back was nowhere near a Fleetwood team.

“We’ll sit back, watch that and reflect on it, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”