Manager Mark Robins was disappointed with the way his Scunthorpe United side lost late in the game on Saturday, at home to Oldham.
Carl Winchester scored the only goal of the Sky Bet League One match, six minutes from time, to take all three points from a hard-fought tie.It was a close contest and the boss was displeased with the overall performance of his side.
“I am obviously not happy,” Robins said.
“We did not deserve to lose it, they did a job on us and you have got to credit them.
“They have come here and gone into the top six after that. A draw would have been a fair result.
“Having said that, we created a few decent opportunities ourselves but we have not played well enough. We have not set up to play from back to front and play long and we don’t play like that.”
The manager admitted it was not how his side had prepared in midweek and, when a number of chances did not find the back of the net, it was clear it would not be our day.
Paddy Madden had a goal disallowed for offside, while Tom Hopper went close with a couple of headers.
Robins says he hopes to see United return to the recent level of performance in the near future.
He stated: “We have excelled in the last few weeks after months of moving the ball better than we did today.
“Tom (Hopper) was isolated up front, we tried to move things around to create better opportunities and we did that.
“We had a goal disallowed, we hit the post earlier in the game, we created one or two decent openings and we haven’t taken them.
“From that point of view, if it’s not going well in front of goal on the day, you have to be able to grind a result out and we couldn’t.”
Robins did have particularly praise for Lee Johnson’s men, who came to Glanford Park with a game plan which seemingly paid off.
“You have to give them credit because they put us under an enormous amount of pressure,” he said.
“They closed down, really ratted around the pitch to win the ball back. The disappointing thing is that we are generally brave and we move the ball well and create chances.
“We haven’t moved it well enough and that is not how we play. It was just one of those games where we haven’t taken the work from the training field onto the pitch.”
United have the opportunity to make amends when they travel to Coventry City on Tuesday night, Robins’ former club. He hopes the quick turnaround will help his team recover from this setback before they host Swindon Town next week.
Robins added: “We have a lot of games coming thick and fast and we have to make sure we are back on it on Tuesday night.
“In a 46-game season there’s always going to be ups and downs.
“The good thing is there’s a game coming really quickly and we have another great game on Saturday at home too.”
See much more from Mark Robins, Isaiah Osbourne and Niall Canavan on The Iron Player.