United manager Mark Robins dubbed the 2-1 defeat against Burton Albion as “an expensive day” with three players now missing for the next match.
Two of those were in the form of nasty injuries, with the Iron boss confirming their absences will be “months rather than weeks”, while goalkeeper Luke Daniels will be missing for three matches after being red carded for violent conduct.“We’ve gifted them their two goals today,” he told The Iron PlayerHD.
“We’ve always got goals in us and in fairness, we are better than we’ve showed. I’m not taking anything from Burton as they’ve worked their socks off and they left their mark on us. For me, it’s disappointing to lose the two players because they’re going to be out for months rather than weeks.
“Luke Williams has come off with a knee problem. He’s gone down under a heavy challenge while Niall landed funny from a jump and tore the ligaments in his ankle. That’s two injuries we could well have done without.
“It’s been an expensive day – certainly for Luke. We just want the two players to be back as quickly as they possible can do. We’ve worked all summer, working in a certain way and they’ve been good and fit into the system and we were looking forward to a really good and assured performance; but we didn’t get that assured performance.”
The result has to be moved on from though, with the Iron’s next game coming in the first round of the Capital One Cup against Barnsley – with the Scunthorpe manager declaring his side will only get better.
“We know we are better than that,” he continued.
“It’s game one, it’s day one and there were 1,100 supporters here today who we wanted to give a real good show – and it’s not been that. The supporters have been brilliant today and I’ve got to thank them for that.
“It’s been a tough day, but there have been positives within it. Charlie Goode has got his first goal in league football – he came in and did pretty well. There wasn’t much culture with some of his clearances, but that was warranted at times.
“We needed to get our foot on the ball a little bit more and that confidence will come. We will be fine this season, there’s no doubt, we have just got to be better than we have been today.”
“He’s let us down,” he said about Daniels' dismissal midway through the second half.
“He’s let himself down. We’ve conceded a penalty on the back of it, whereas we needn’t have lost the game. It was a sending off. He was fouled on the way out after getting the ball, but his reaction wasn’t right.
“He knows how I feel and he’s obviously apologetic to everybody.
“We have to do the right things on the pitch more often than not. If you don’t do that and you dribble the ball in your penalty area and slip – the likelihood is the ball is going to end up in the back of the net. If you try and put your elbow out to keep somebody away from you in the spur of the moment – the likelihood is you’re going to be sent off, miss three games and concede a penalty."