Manager Paul Simpson spoke to us after today’s defeat against Bristol Rovers.
“The first thing I’ll say is that it’s an improvement from last week but sadly we’ve come away with nothing again,” he said.
“I think we’ve been done by a real bit of quality for their first goal and the second goal is disappointing because it’s not really come from anything. We allowed him to come inside and get a shot on target when we’ve got to send him down the line there. It’s the same thing we talked about last week and it’s real simple defending things.
“We’ve had opportunities. We had the scramble in the six-yard box at 1-1 and you have to stick that in the back of the net. We had two or three bites of the cherry but we weren’t able to score.
“I’m disappointed we’ve lost the game and we’ve come away with nothing again, but there was certainly a vast improvement with the way the players went about it today.
“I thought there were some good passages of play where we got ourselves into good areas but we just weren’t able to get that final finish for ourselves again.”
“We did start the game well today but I think we’ve done that on a few occasions,” he continued. “We got ourselves in front then they had a bit of a spell.
“Their first goal is real quality from Brown, it’s a great bit of skill and it’s the sort of finish Chris Martin has done all of his career. He showed his quality up against us today and they gave us some issues when balls went up to him.
“On the flip side, I also thought we caused them problems as well. We were patient with the way we passed the ball and we got ourselves wide. We had full backs joining in and overloading which was something we talked about before the game, because we knew we had to go and be positive.
“We got ourselves onto some good transition situations with Jordan Gibson and Jack Diamond, but we didn’t complete it properly or get that pass off. That’s something we’ve talked about all season unfortunately.
“You have to finish your chances off and we haven’t been able to do that this season. Although we’re getting into the right areas, not by luck but by some good football, we just aren’t finishing things. You have to get that little bit of quality or even that bit of luck which we didn’t get from that corner. It’s another game gone, but we’ve just got to keep working.
“We have to show that pride and belief. We’ve got to play with more desire than we did against Cambridge, that’s for sure. There was a massive gulf between what we did last week and what we’ve done this week. That’s a pleasing thing for me, but we’ve still lost the game and got nothing from it.”
“I feel as though getting them in tomorrow is the right thing to do,” he told us. “We’ve got a long journey back which we need to get out of our system so we can then start preparations properly on Monday so we’re ready for Burton.
“That’s the only thing we can do now. We’ve just got to keep trying to do things properly and try and gain some respect again in the way we go about it. I thought we did that today, but we’ve got to make sure we’re still playing for pride and playing to try and achieve something.
“The fans were outstanding today and we have it every time we come away from home. I’m sorry they haven’t been able to see a result for us, but they stuck with us and I think they did that because they saw what the players were trying to do. They kept fighting right through to the end but unfortunately we’ve got no rewards from it.”