Iron winger Gary McSheffrey gave a very honest reflection of Saturday’s 4-0 home defeat at the hands of Preston North End in the painful moments following the match.
It was United’s first home game of the new campaign, and following their midweek win over Blackburn in the Capital One Cup, expectations were tepid ahead of the game.However, North End took a first-half lead through former Scunthorpe loanee Joe Garner, and then never looked back.
Miguel Llera unfortunately steered into his own net to have the Lilywhites 2-0 up at the break; with Chris Humphrey adding a third in the second-half before Garner’s completed the rout.
“We started well, and we had a couple of good efforts,” McSheffrey told The Iron Player, as he dissected the match at length.
“Paddy [Madden] hit the bar with a great chance, and then Jenno [Jennison Myrie-Williams] had a shot from distance and the goalkeeper saved it.”
Unfortunately, however, that was to be about the high-point of the day for the team in claret and blue, as he went on to imply.
“And then, we let in a goal,” he sighed.
“It was a good goal from Joe Garner’s point of view.
“But from ours - bringing it down on the edge of the six-yard box - it’s not good enough.
“Then they got a second, which knocked the stuffing out of us a little bit.
“But we need to react better to setbacks than we did today.”
Indeed, what he was probably alluding to at this point was the way in which Scunthorpe were effectively killed-off at the start of the second-half, when Preston grabbed their third of the match.
At that point, had the Iron have grabbed the next goal, one feels that things could have unfolded differently.
“Second-half, we came out with all the intention of getting the first goal, which was always going to be key,” he considered.
“Then, two minutes in, we concede a goal – so it’s not ideal.
“We need to be better, everyone individually and collectively as a team.”
See much more from Gary McSheffrey, and others, on The Iron Player.