United midfielder Neal Bishop was disappointed not to leave the Checkatrade.com Stadium with three points on Saturday.
The Iron were denied a win when two late goals meant they shared the spoils against Crawley Town and Bishop was disappointed not to have seen the game off.“I thought we were cruising,” he reflected to The Iron Player.
“We got to 2-0 and were in complete control in the first half. We played really well away from home and were always dangerous going forward.
“Once we got the second goal, we’ve got to be better and defend as a team.
“It comes down to game management and we started to do daft things - flicking the ball - and we can’t do that.
“We were 2-0 up and to lose that lead and draw 2-2, we were hanging on in the end really. They’ll be disappointed they didn’t nick it and it probably explains why we’re in the position that we are.
“It wasn’t professional enough, we need to be better than that. Up to their first goal, we were controlling it the best we have this season.”
Victory would have put United joint-20th, with a game in hand, and Bishop feels it was an opportunity missed for the Iron.
“A win would have been massive and got us out of the bottom four, which would have been massive psychologically with another win on the road too,” he said.
“We’ve had three or four away games now where we’ve looked solid. It’s a massive reality check but we will sit down and look at the positives from it.”
One positive Mark Robins can take is his side are now unbeaten in five matches on the road and Bishop feels the side undid their hard work which put them ahead.
“Maybe we can take positives that we controlled large parts of the game, but now it’s still very raw," he stated.
“When we got to 2-0 it was like we thought it was too easy. We took the extra touch and made the wrong decisions. Everything after our second goal we want to forget about.
“We’ve set ourselves better standards and by the time the second goal went in, as a group we should be able to shut the game down and keep the ball and make the opposition work. Instead it was us.
“They had nothing to lose, threw everything at us and it was end to end. We had a good shout for a penalty turned down in injury time and it’s a 50/50 game.
“We’re away from home 2-0 up and we’re disappointed but we’ll look at the positives and negatives and assess things before Barnsley next week.”
Liam O’Neil made his Iron debut after joining on loan from West Brom last week and Bishop, who played alongside him in central midfield, was impressed with what he has seen so far from the 21-year-old.
“He’s a confident lad,” he admitted.
“He’s come in, he’s a talker, he wants the ball, opens his mouth and he’s seen what we’re all about and what this league is all about.
“It’s been hard for him - we trained inside a lot last week off the grass because of the weather but he’ll hopefully get a week’s training and we’ll see the best of him with more games under his belt.”
See much more from Neal Bishop, Paddy Madden and Mark Robins on The Iron Player.