Iron manager Brian Laws was frustrated after seeing his side squander a lead to lose 2-1 at Bury on Tuesday night.
Their hopes of securing League One survival suffered a huge blow.Karl Hawley headed United into the lead before the half-time break, after the away side had dominated the opening half.
However, Bury hit back in the second and levelled midway through it via a Jonson Clarke-Harris free-kick, before former Iron loanee Nicky Ajose scored just two minutes later.
They couldn't find a way back into the game and, with two games left to play, now find themselves five points behind Oldham Athletic, who have a game in hand.
"We saw a contrasting couple of halves for sure," Laws told The Iron Player.
"The first half was scrappy, which I did expect, because it was never going to be a freeflowing game.
"I thought we controlled the game though to start with and dominated in good areas.
"I have to say, how we didn't score a couple of extra goals I don't know.
"That said, one goal isn't and never has been enough for us.
"We always have to score more than one goal because there is a fragility about us when teams get on top of us.
"Away from home, we'll have spells when we're on top and the opposition will have spells when they're on top.
"It's how you defend those periods and we simply don't defend well as a team.
"We conceded a sloppy free-kick, which I certainly wasn't very happy with. It was just a cheap free-kick and it just ended up in the back of our net.
"You could sense from that the negativity on the pitch and all of a sudden people were trying to hide.
"There is a fear factor that I can see all over the park. We can't seem to muster 90 minutes out of them. We seem to fall at certain hurdles and it's been like that all season.
"When they scored, they could smell our fear and we were exposed at the back by a little bit of pace. Our two centre-halves were just stagnant and didn't sense the danger as the ball came through and we just fell apart."
See much more from Brian Laws, Tom Newey and Michael Collins on The Iron Player.