Murray Wallace was left feeling disappointed on Saturday evening, as his side slipped to a 3-1 defeat at fellow play-off chasers Millwall.
Shaun Williams opened the scoring from the penalty spot a matter of minutes into the game, before Shane Ferguson and Aiden O’Brien added to the home side’s tally in the second half.
There was to be one positive to take from the game late on, after Matt Crooks headed in from Josh Morris’ free kick – but, by that point, it was only a mere consolation.
“It’s disappointing, obviously.” Wallace told The Iron PlayerHD.
“We didn’t have the fight that we showed last week to get the win against Bradford.
“We are obviously expected to give our everything, and I felt we fell well short of that today.”
The Scottish centre-back claimed that the early penalty rattled the Iron, but the squad should have provided a better reaction to that disappointment.
“We’ve been conceding too many goals recently. We didn’t react to the early penalty at all,” he said.
“In certain situations we were playing the ball around rather than trying to drive at people. We would go for the safe option, rather than counter-attacking on them.
“We’ve been too slow in the build-up, and that probably made it easy for them to defend.”
Wallace stated it was important the players didn’t let the result and performance play on their minds, and that the performance levels in training this coming week were as high as possible.
“As a team we try and bounce back from these things as soon as we get back out onto the training pitch,” he said.
“I think you’ve got to lift the confidence and mood in training. We need to train and give 100%, and I think that gives the man next to you a lift.”
United welcome Bolton Wanderers to Glanford Park on Saturday. The Trotters currently occupy second place, but Wallace wants his side to provide a positive reaction so that a play-off place can be assured sooner, rather than later.
“Recent results have taken us down into the play-offs, but we’ve got to disregard that and try and get some form back,” he said.
“It’s important if we do go into the play-offs that we have some of our confidence back.”
See much more from Murray Wallace and Graham Alexander on The Iron PlayerHD.