Dagenham & Redbridge boss draws on positives in stalemate

Daggers have now gone 411 minutes without a goal, since Josh Rees netted in a 3-1 loss at Chesterfield, and taken just two points from a possible 15.

And Strevens felt they could have done better against the Shaymen, who are also without a win in five matches.

“The positives are we come here and get a point, it’s a hard place to come,” he told the club website.

“I don’t think a Dagenham team has won here in quite a while.

“A long, hard journey so I’m happy to take the point, there’s positives with that. But I feel like we should’ve done better.

“Certainly in the second half, I thought we needed to be better.

“The positive is the clean sheet. The more clean sheets we can get across this season it’s going to give us a chance in games.

“The last couple of games we haven’t given away many chances in all truth.”

Strevens gave West Ham youngster Keenan Appiah-Forson the first start of his loan spell and a debut off the bench to Hammers old boy Freddie Sears.

And he saw some good signs in attack, adding: “I spoke to Charley [Kendall], he’s all-round game for the team has been amazing but I can’t keep throwing him out there game after game expecting something different to happen for him.

“I need to take him out to put him back in. He can cover all sorts of positions for us.

“We felt big Syd [Ibie] and Hilly [Ryan Hill] would get down the sides of them, with [Omar] Mussa drifting off of them, and first half it was quite good the way it worked.

“Keenan has come in, he’s a great lad, lots of energy, you see that first half, him and Conor [Lawless] played with lots of energy.

“The longer the game went on with it being such a big pitch, asking him to come in and Conor not playing as many minutes as they both probably would’ve liked the last few weeks, they both got a little bit tired.

“For his first game he did well, he had moments where he broke away from them, trying to find little passes, so he has come away with some positives making his full debut for us.

“It’s a point that we’ll take but I do want us to be better than that.”

Some 30 Daggers fans made the long trip to The Shay Stadium and Strevens admitted he was ‘humbled’ by their support.

“Anyone that has paid their hard-earned money to come up here and support us and has got this long journey home and going to work in the morning, I can’t be more thankful,” he said.

“I’m so humbled by the support they’re giving, because the last couple of games they could’ve really not wanted to travel up here.

“On behalf of me, all the players, all the staff. I can’t thank them enough. It’s incredible from them.”