Fleetwood Town: Graham Alexander 'will not wield axe'

Fleetwood boss Graham Alexander says he will not make judgements on players based purely on Saturday's 3-0 home defeat by bottom club Bristol Rovers.

But the 41-year-old is keen to reduce the size of his squad.

"I was still quite certain about what I had to do, even when we were picking up results," he told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"There were still things I wasn't happy with. I'm not going to use Saturday as an excuse to wield the axe, but you seem to learn more from defeats."

Alexander, who was appointed as successor to Micky Mellon on 6 December, added: "It's given us all a reality check about where we are and what we have to do."

The Cod Army have signed four new players since the turn of the year.

Goalkeeper David Lucas, winger Gareth Evans and midfielder Mozesh Gyorio all arrived at Highbury on the first day of the January transfer window.

And on 11 January Fleetwood broke their transfer record, paying a fee believed to be in the region of £300,000 for prolific Kidderminster Harriers striker Jamille Matt.

Matt made his debut against Rovers on Saturday and Alexander believes it would be unfair to judge him on his display in a match where the whole team performed below expectations.

The Fleetwood boss commented: "We were unsure whether to start him or not, but we just thought we had to add him in because he's something that we haven't got in the team at the moment.

"He showed glimpses of what he can do, but on the day, he came into a team that haven't really competed.

"If you come in for your first game and the team don't play well, it's hard to show what you can do."

Fleetwood are on the fringes of the play-off places in League Two.

They lie eighth in the table, four points from an automatic promotion spot.