In the cold light of day what can have been construed as a disappointing performance often throws up positives that, in the fog of frustration, can often get missed.
One such shining light from the Tuesday night game at Harrogate was a first league goal for Taylor Charters, who stroked his team into an early lead with a beauty of a finish.
“I’m delighted for Taylor, it was a great goal,” manager Paul Simpson said. “I think he did really well, but I felt he was starting to look tired and that’s why I took him off.
“It’s brilliant for him. He’s got a lovely left foot and it’s a fantastic finish. He’ll take a lot of confidence from that.
“Ryan Edmondson’s is a good goal as well. Edmo got a great header off a fantastic ball from Armer, so I’m really pleased with that.
“I wanted to keep Ryan on there, I just think he was still causing a few issues, problems. He got booked, and the truth is he’s got to learn to control that.
“If he’d got a second yellow just before half-time, that would have been a really harsh one. He had the ball, the lad’s come and just managed to poke it, and caught him late.
“I don’t agree with yellow cards for those sorts of things. That’s the natural movement he’s making when he’s played the ball. The first one’s fair, I don’t have a problem with that.
“I just felt we needed to keep two strikers on there. I didn’t think it was working for us with a back three, we had too many players who were spare, so that’s why I changed it.”
“Owen Moxon’s goal is a scruffy one, but it doesn’t matter,” he continued. “It just goes down as Moxon on the goalscorer’s list. I’m pleased because he’s followed things in and thankfully he’s nodded it on target.
“But there’s still a lot of things I’m not happy with at all. We got three good goals, they were just three poor goals to concede.
“I think we talk about getting six passes in to get control in the game. I can’t remember exactly but I’m sure we stated to get a little bit of control just before we scored the first goal.
“We managed to keep the ball, Mox and Callum got on it, Morgan was stepping in, Corey was feeding Jack Armer, and we were patient with it.
“We get ourselves a goal and we didn’t seem to be able to cope then, when we were ahead. We allowed them back into it. We get ahead again, and think right, keep a bit of control.
“Yet again we let ourselves down with that, which goes against things that we’ve been doing really well this season.
“The set plays, Gez is meticulous, he goes through them with all of the players, so when you get done like we were for the second goal it’s really disappointing. It’s something we’ve got to get back to being ruthless with again.”
“There were lots of elements that didn’t connect,” he continued. “All three goals are avoidable, and I know people will say there are mistakes for every goal, but these are really basic ones.
“What we’ve done well consistently over the season as a group, we’ve done the basics well. On this occasion we didn’t. We allowed them time on the ball, allowed them to play, allowed runs in behind.
“It’s another example that you have to know all the time that if you allow standards to drop even a little bit, you’ll be punished.
“It’s not a case of being reminded of that – you don’t deserve to be up in the top places if you need to be reminded. We’re not good enough to go anywhere and take it for granted.
“We have to be absolutely at it all the time. That’s every day in training as well. That’s not just in games. This group of fellas, they want the right things, are trying to do the right things, but in this game it just didn’t happen for us.”