Jim Bentley says that his Dale side need to remain positive and keep working hard ahead of their match against Doncaster Rovers on Thursday.
On reflection of Monday’s defeat at home to Hartlepool United and leading up to Thursday’s match with Doncaster Rovers, the gaffer said: “We’ve got to remain positive, keep working hard, keep identifying things with certain individuals where they’ve got to do better.
“I think there was some okay performances (on Monday). I think Danny Lloyd coming in, in his first game in nine months showed some good stuff.
“Obviously, he’s not going to have that sharpness, but I think he did alright. Femi Seriki at right-back did okay, there was other little bits and pieces here and there.
“I think some were average, and I think some become below average and poor. And again, you can’t have a team going onto the pitch where one or two are going to come out with a bit of credit, one or two are not bad and one or two are below par.
“We’ve got to be bang at it every game and that’s the frustration. What do we do? We come in tomorrow, we dust ourselves down, we go again.
“But I can’t keep saying the same thing, we’ve got to do something about it, we can show them with regards to where the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition come.
“The centre-half scored from a corner, he’s got above two of our players there and put it in the back of the net. That can’t happen, that’s desire. That’s one player for them showing a bit more attitude and desire to go and beat two of our players to go and get on the end of something.
“We’ve just got to keep doing our preparation, keep working hard, keep believing in ourselves. Because in football and in life, if you feel sorry for yourselves, the next team they’ll be waiting to go and lay the boot in again.
“They’ll (Doncaster) be looking for a response, they’ve been beaten today (Monday), that was one of the results that I’ve just seen there, so they’ll be looking to respond to that in front of their home crowd.
“So, we either go there and roll and get our bellies tickled or we man up, we take it on the chin today and come out fighting in our next game.
“Because ultimately that’s the position we’re in. We’ve got 25 games to play. We may as well recognise, which I’ve said from day one, where we’re at. We are in a relegation battle, there’s no “oh there’s time on our sides” or people clinging on to the hope of January.
“The Chairmans come out with a statement this week, with regards to how the clubs run, finances, et cetera. We’ll do all we can in our power and within our means, to try and shake the squad up, to get one or two in that will hopefully help us get away from where we are at this position that we find ourselves at the minute.
“But we’ve got to show more character and find a way of winning games rather than finding a way of losing games, which we’ve done today (Monday).”