United skipper Danny Grainger admitted after Saturday’s game that the squad had let themselves down with a performance that was nowhere near what is now expected from this group.
“We just weren’t good enough,” he said. “That was right across the pitch, so I don’t think there’s many of the lads who can say they did enough. It’s a hard one to explain, especially after last week’s performance, but we were just nowhere near where we should be at.
“The tone of the game was set from the way we conceded that first goal. As a team we just didn’t do our jobs, and that’s as basic as it is. There are no excuses for that, we were just nowhere near it. They won the physical battles in both boxes and that’s why they got the points.”
“We can only apologise to the fans for that level of performance because they’ve paid good money and we let them down,” he added. “There’s no way we can paper over cracks, or anything like that, and when our fans follow us the way they do they’ve got a right to voice their opinion when they see something like that.
“We’ve bounced back before and we’ll be working hard to do the same again. What we know is that it isn’t what other teams are doing to us, it’s what we’re doing to ourselves that’s causing us problems at the moment. The good thing about that is it means we can put it right.”
“We aren’t getting cut open by teams, we’re basically not doing our jobs properly, and that’s the reason why we’re losing games,” he commented. “We haven’t turned into a bad team overnight and we’ve shown in fits and starts this season how good we can play.
“Even when we don’t play well we’ve shown we can grind results out so producing what we did against Accrington just isn’t good enough.
“It was nine or ten who didn’t turn up or perform and you aren’t going to win any game of football when that’s the case. We’ll look over it to try to identify why that was the case and then it’s on to Coventry, where we have to make sure we do it right.
“That’ll be a tough game but we know if we put in the right type of performance we can match them and get the points. It’s over to us to make sure we do enough to be the team that’s on top and looking for the win.”
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