Taylor had 'honest' talk with players before win

Bristol Rovers manager Matt Taylor had an "honest" conversation with the players regarding the stability of his position at the club before Tuesday's 3-2 win against Charlton.

Rovers went into the game off the back of a run of four consecutive defeats, but moved out of the League One relegation zone up to 18th after picking up their first three points since 31 August.

Taylor said the win was their "best performance" of the season so far.

"I had an honest conversation with them in terms of where I felt I was at in terms of my stature at the club and my position at the club - they're not stupid," Taylor told BBC Radio Bristol.

"As a manager you can't keep losing games and I thought the manner they went about their business tonight - and yesterday to a certain extent - led by Scotty [Sinclair] and the senior ones, they pulled and drove and pushed that team to where they needed to be."

Former Rotherham and Exeter manager Taylor took over at the Memorial Stadium in December and helped steer them to 15th last season.

The Charlton win was just their third in nine league games this campaign and Taylor said if he left the club he did not think they had shown their full capability as a team.

"I wanted to make sure they understood that at the start of this season I was a big part of it, we were trying our hardest to build something positive and something good and for that to end sooner rather than later I think we wouldn't have done ourselves justice - myself included," Taylor said.

The win against Charlton was not without errors, as Rovers held a 3-0 lead only to concede in the 79th and 94th minute.

Yet Taylor challenged the team to take the "belief and confidence and style of play" into their game away to Burton on Saturday.

"I feel we've got a good environment, we're young, we're naive, we made so many strange errors in games but the core group is a positive one, a good one I want to continue working with," Taylor said.

"But now the challenge will be can we back it up because going through what we went through we're not out the woods by any means, we're only a bad game or performance from being back at square one."

Defender James Wilson, who scored Rovers' third goal, said the playing squad fully support Taylor.

"It's not just his job on the line, it's all of our jobs. If someone else comes in they might not think we're any good, so we've got to really back him [Taylor] and go for it," Wilson said.

"We worked really hard. I know it's been tough lately results-wise but I think the first-half, the first 70 minutes was where we want to be, need to be."