Speaking to Wales Online following the game, Slade admitted that the play offs weren't a realistic expectation anymore, but he did say he had full belief that we had too much quality in the group to be dragged into a relegation battle, so he was tipping us to finish in the top half of the table.
With a 16 point gap now to the top six places, and only six points off the drop spots, Slade said of the game and our chances.
'My initial reaction is of disappointment. It's a disappointed changing room. We both cancelled each other out in the first period and we tried to do something about that to show some intent. We had a couple of decent chances, one goal looked like it might decide it. It was important we kept a clean sheet, we did that, but the game was far from a classic.'
Presumably he was asked the question directly about the play offs being 'gone' as he went on to say.
'I would not say the play offs are gone, but it is looking unrealistic, isn't it? If we are being honest. We need to put some real consolidated run together to get us up there.'
And that's kind of run that just doesn't look like happening any time soon and that's what he acknowledges.
'It's not impossible, it can happen, teams have done it before, but at the minute we don't look like we are capable of doing that despite the clean sheet here. We need to be picking up wins not draws.'
With us precariously placed above the drop zone, and closer to those positions than we are our stating aims of a promotion push, he added.
'I'm not wary of being dragged into a relegation fight. We have enough ability and collective togetherness, character and desire to look upwards and get us up to the top half of the table. I'm not saying you can't get dragged into it, but that is not my mind set and I don't believe that is the players' mind set either. That's all I'm saying.'
With the crowd more than making their feelings known throughout the game, Slade added that he could 'understand some of it' but in his mind one of the best moves of the game that we put together was 'booed' because it was a backwards move to begin with - but that in itself says so much about patience levels and frustration now - which if he wasn't going to acknowledge that end of it publicly, he has to surely know.
Read more:
http://www.cardiff.vitalfootball.co.uk/ ... z3RTse3KOp