Mark Robins expressed his disappointment with the way his side conceded late at home to Oldham on Saturday.
With the score tied at 0-0 in a close contest, Carl Winchester won it for the Latics six minutes from time when a mazy run into the box saw him find space to get a shot off and win it for the visitors.
He has already spoke of his disappointment of the overall performance and he feels the match-winner could have been stopped.
“Their goal was well preventable,” the Scunthorpe United manager told the Iron Player.
“I was disappointed with our reaction. If you look at their run, (Jacob) Mellis has sprinted into space and gone on an overlap. He’s rocked Marcus (Williams) on his heels, the ball’s been picked up by Winchester in some space and he has been able to waltz through and slot it in off the post.
“Truth be told it was one of those bits of quality in a game of little quality. That’s the disappointment for us.
“Once or twice we’ve created things with a bit of quality and almost scored and on another day we may have nicked that one or got the draw.
“We haven’t and we have to play better than that, we are better than that and we have to maintain the confidence going into the game on Tuesday night.”
It was just his third loss in the league since taking the reigns at Glanford Park in October and he admitted it was unfamiliar territory, especially to criticise his team’s performance - the other two against Bristol City and Notts County were extremely undeserving.
“There’s been very few times I have come in and had a pop, I am not ranting and raving, you try and stay as even as possible. I have never really had that to do, it’s a new one for me and we will make sure we are back on it (when we travel to Coventry in midweek).
“If you flip it on its head we have kept out a team pushing for the play-offs for 85 minutes, it’s one way of looking at it but another way of looking at it is we are a really good team and we had a bit of a dip and we need to make sure we are back on it for Tuesday.”
One slight positive to take from the match was the debut of Dutch forward Kevin van Veen. With the high expectations of the Iron faithful, we saw glimpses of his capabilities as he linked up well at times with Paddy Madden and showed good vision on a couple of occasions.
“In that little period you saw a cameo of what he is going to be like,” Robins said.
“He got involved and made one or two chances and I think he realised it was a difficult game to come into with the way things were being played. We needed a change in midfield to try and move the ball better and get more and better quality into the strikers. It meant because Tom (Hopper) was isolated and he was starting to tire, we could bring Kevin on and maybe put more quality into him.”
Despite being unhappy with aspects of his side’s performance, Robins insists it is a rare occurrence and stated how he has enjoyed collaborating with the current crop.
Defender Miguel Llera was one member absent from the matchday squad as Eddie Nolan took his place on the bench and the manager says it is down to the “healthy competition” in the United setup:
“They are great to work with, we have a decent squad there and they are capable so we will look forward to Tuesday now.
“It (competition) comes from the first team performing well and continuing to perform well but the lads not starting are pushing to get into the team and the lads training and not in the squad are pushing to get into the squad.”