Iron manager Mark Robins was disappointed with the performance which saw his side suffer a 2-1 reverse to Swindon Town.
Goalless at the interval, the hosts took a two-goal advantage before Jordan Clarke gave Scunthorpe hope with twenty minutes left to play. Gary McSheffrey hit the post with a free kick late on, but couldn’t find the equaliser in the dying minutes.“Today we weren’t good enough,” he told The Iron PlayerHD.
“Right from the start and all the way through we weren’t good enough. We could have won this game hands down inside the opening twenty minutes and we decided for whatever reason that we’d take our time.
“They had a spell towards the end of the first half, and we conceded two poor goals in the second half. We then had a task to get back in it and I felt we could if we made better decisions. They were difficult conditions and I don’t think either team coped with them brilliantly, but they controlled the ball better than we did at times.
“We created decent opportunities – mainly from set plays – and were unfortunate not to get an equaliser at the end. From what we’ve been producing, that isn’t good enough and we were missing half a team from today’s selection."
Clarke netted to halve Swindon’s two-goal lead with a little over 15 minutes plus stoppage time remaining; heading in his first competitive goal for the club.
“I’m pleased whenever we score a goal,” he continued.
“But in the context of the game it was too little too late. He’s (Clarke) guided the ball into the net well after a good ball in from Gary (McSheffrey). His delivery was good all day and the header was a really good header. I just wish we had been better for the other 98 minutes of the game.”
Five changes were made ahead of the game, with Scott Laird, Luke Daniels and Neal Bishop missing through suspension, injury and illness respectively.
“We’ve been fairly decimated (in terms of the players we’ve lost in recent weeks),” he said.
“We’ve got to make sure we regroup and get back to winning ways as soon as we possibly can. We need to get back to the effort and determination – as we know we’ve got the quality.
“I expect Luke Daniels to be back next week. He’s got a thigh problem that he picked up on Monday. He didn’t train all week and I didn’t want to take the risk. Bish (Neal Bishop) was ill and it takes a bit of time to settle in with those changes but I thought that Joe (Anyon) and Sean (McAllister) did okay today.
“If we are there or there abouts going into the New Year and have everybody fit, we can have a really good second half of the season. We’ve not done too bad in the first half and if we won today we'd have gone seventh. We haven’t managed that today and that’s the disappointment.
“We’ve just got to drive ourselves on.”
See much more from Mark Robins, Jordan Clarke and Jack King on The Iron PlayerHD.
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