We spoke to Mark Hughes following our defeat to Doncaster.
Speaking to CUTV, Mark began by saying: “Not good enough today, unfortunately. I thought we started brightly enough.
“I thought we had a good passage of play certainly for the first 20-25 minutes and then it just seemed to dissipate our energy and conceding the goal once again. That's the difficulty for us at the moment and it seems to really affect us adversely and we've got to get over that. That's not acceptable in terms of our reaction to going behind.
“We've been able to come back in other games but that ability wasn't there today. I just think we didn't play the conditions at all well, a difficult pitch. They play week in, week out and they understand that at times you've just got to hit a longer ball, turn defences around and make people defend.
“We never did that to them at any point in the game. It's one that we have no pride in. It was a performance that was a long way away from certainly the last two performances and maybe a few of the scars of the season were on show today.
“So we've got to put that behind us and address them very, very quickly for Tuesday because if we don't it'll be more of the same.”
We asked Mark if the issue in the squad was the belief. He responded:
“I think that was one of the issues today.
“Certainly that's what it looked like. I think conceding the first goal is a problem for us. I think it just affects the group too adversely.
“We need to be stronger than that mentally. It's a huge thing in football. You've got to be able to do the right things under pressure, recognise what you need to do and sometimes if you're not quite there in terms of your mentality and understanding what's required you make mistakes.
“There were mistakes right through the game today, not really understanding what we needed to do to get back into the game. Certainly at 2-0 we're still very much in it. At half-time 1-0 we're still very much in it.
“We make an error from a throw-in. On those things you wonder what the guys are thinking. So it's a difficult one to take because given the last two performances I didn't expect that today but that's maybe why we are where we are.
“That consistent level of performance is difficult to attain.”
The Blues started brightly, but then failed to take any chances and fell behind. Perhaps the story of our season.
“You know that more than me but in my short time here there's been periods where we've had really good opportunities to take the lead. We haven't been able to take them. Then the opposition go up the other end and it always seems to be a softer goal or a softer opportunity for them that they're able to capitalise on.
“We don't seem to have those opportunities. It's a strange one today. I didn't see it coming but we've got to get back to where we were Tuesday night and make sure we have a proper performance which we're capable of.
“We've shown that but today we just didn't have that energy, that ability to be on the front foot, to anticipate things in key areas of the field. There's always a half second behind the play that Doncaster were able to produce so yeah not a great day really.”
Tranmere played last night, with their win taking the gap up to nine points, we asked Mark if he felt that added more pressure. He answered:
“No, I don't think so. I think we keep on saying it's about us and what we can do and what we can affect. Another opportunity today to affect what's happening to us.
“We didn't take it but we've got to go again Tuesday and address that.”
On whether or not we had enough in the squad to get out of this, Mark explained:
“On what I saw today, you question that but I've seen better things than we were able to produce here. The performances aren't what we need at the moment but unfortunately that's what we got today.”
On the incredible travelling support, Mark said:
“It was important that we went over and acknowledged that we'd given them absolutely nothing today really and they stuck by us and still clapped us and yeah we'll get a little bit of stick because of that performance. Rightly so, we've got to take it on the chin, accept it when it's deserved and it was today.”
Jordan Jones was absent from the squad today, Mark gave us an update on him:
“He's going to be missing for a few weeks unfortunately. He got a bang a couple of weeks ago and that affected his thigh and after Tuesday night's game it was clear that he couldn't continue.
“He had his scan done, it was quite a significant issue for him so it's going to be two, three weeks, possibly more.”
Cameron Harper left the pitch with a black eye after a collision late on, Mark said:
“We'll check him out. He does all the protocols because it was a concussion substitution that we did so I'm not sure whether or not he's passed them but we'll obviously keep an eye on him.”
