MANAGER: We will be fighting

"It's a heavy defeat we could do without," he said. "We probably weren’t expecting to pick up too much here but I thought we would have performed better than we did. Decisions have cost us but I think we created part of our own downfall. "The penalty was a poor decision but we could have done better with the third after that. We haven't helped ourselves and we simply have to be better.

"We knew it was going to be difficult because they are a decent side in very good form. They're certain to be in the play-off places as far as I'm concerned but we should still be making things tougher."

"The run of injuries is unbelievable and we've been forced to make more changes today," he continued. "We've got a heck of a lot of injuries to key players and it looks like we've picked up a few more. Lee Miller is carrying an injury with his groin, as are Courtney [Meppen-Walter], Reece Brown and James Berrett. We're literally down to the kids at the moment and I think we finished the game with seven players under the age of 21."

"We were aware of the situation with Gary [Madine] but the extent of it was changed, for whatever reason, last week," he told us. "We expected to have him for all the games, apart from Crawley, but things have been shifted to make that difficult. That's obviously something which is completely out of our hands but we'll keep trying to find ways of sorting it out."

"I think the reason we lost this one was because there was a lack of belief amongst the group, particularly in the second half," he commented. "We had a lack of leaders and that's difficult to comprehend. We're going to have to find leaders this week and they're all going to have to step up. There's no excuses any more. They're going to have to come to the party and give their all. 

"We wanted to be on the front foot but we didn’t get enough ball into Lee Miller to start with. We rushed things and we just weren't controlled enough. I'm having to put young lads in positions where they are having to learn quickly. We looked laboured at times because of that and there was too much indecision. We were taking an extra half a second to decide what the right pass was. There were a number of performances across the pitch that just weren’t acceptable and we'll have to address that quickly."

"Like I say, the injury situation isn't great," he explained. "Paul Thirlwell looks like he is going to be out for the rest of the season with an achilles problem. Liam Noble could also be missing for the rest of the season, with a calf problem, but it is what it is. 

 

"We now have to pick everyone up for next weekend. We have got to go again but we have got a lot of tired bodies and tired minds. They know the situation and they're ready for the fight ahead because nobody wants this club to go down to the next level. We're definitely going to scrap because I'm not going down without a fight.

"There are three games to go and I still believe that if we win the two games then we go to Wolves with it all to play for. If we can do our job on Saturday then it will have other clubs looking over their shoulders. It's up to the lads to do the job when they step over the line. I'll continue to take the blame when things go wrong but I think responsibility is a big word. I ask every player before the game if they're ready to play and the answer is always yes. They have got to start showing that on the pitch."

"I believe that we have enough to stay in this league," he insisted. "I now have to get the players believing in that as well. The fans will come and support us, as they have done, and they've been magnificent again for us. They clapped the players off and I thought that was a credit to them. 

"I know one or two are disappointed, and I fully understand that, so if they can come down on Saturday then they will have a big part to play. We are going to fight for what we need for these last three games and we want everybody to be along there with us."