Manager Jim Bentley on Dale’s 2-1 defeat to Doncaster Rovers…
“When you go into the week and you’re coming off the back of two wins, you’re looking at building a bit of momentum and confidence but I think from the very first whistle today we looked nervous, we looked shaky and we defended poorly,” said the gaffer.
“We’ve gone through clips, we’ve spoken to them about strengths and weaknesses of the opposition and one of those things was with George Miller spinning in behind, and we could have been a couple of goals down [early on].
“It put that little bit of nervous edge to us and I thought we looked jittery throughout. We were jittery with the ball, we weren’t brave enough, we played in bubbles a little bit - a look after your own self type mentality - and that was disappointing because again, if you do feel sorry for yourself, there’s no place in football for that and there’s always someone waiting to put the boot in on you.
“With regards to where we are against Doncaster today, it was a tight game, but we were too easy to play against and we gave them too many opportunities. We didn’t defend well enough and going the other way we made poor decisions.
“We looked at their weaknesses and we thought Scott Quigley could cause them problems which was proven, we thought aerially we could cause them problems, and certainly with the lad going off early on and the young lad coming on, but there was no real anticipation and willingness and desire, and I think we’ve got to be better than that. With the ball and without the ball, I’m disappointed, but it was still a tight game.
“The only time we built up any momentum was when we could have got that second goal. In the second half we got our foot on the gas, we kept getting in down the right hand side, which is an area we worked on. We got a couple of balls in and we had the opportunity just before they scored, but if you’re going to defend like we defended for their second goal, and I’ve not seen the goal back, but at the time I thought it was far too easy to play against. We just literally gave them the second goal which gave them the opportunity to run the game out.
“It’s disappointing and there’s work to be done, but I didn’t think there was much between the sides. I’ve got to be careful that I don’t got too low like I wasn’t too high last week [after the win over Colchester United]. We’ve got to make sure that we keep believing, we keep working hard and keep embracing the new challenge, but we need to play better than we did today.”
Watch the full interview on YouTube.