Iron manager Stuart McCall felt his side were made to pay for ‘giving away two terrible goals’ as they suffered a 2-0 home defeat to Peterborough United on Saturday.
A brace from former Scunthorpe striker Matt Godden in the second half sealed the three points for the Posh.
Until the first goal, the hosts had looked comfortable and like they might get something from the game.
“I thought we handled what they had to throw at us in the first half and were reasonably comfortable, but the game’s about 96 minutes not just 45,” McCall told iFollow Iron.
"The biggest disappointment is the two soft goals we conceded. We know the second one was a goalkeeping error and that happens in football. Jak (Alnwick) has been outstanding all season. That goal probably deflated us but for the first goal we have to do better, we switched off at the back post and let Godden nip in.
“We came off at half-time having had a couple of good chances. Stephen (Humphrys) could have scored, it went over the goalkeeper and hit the sidenetting. Ryan (Colclough) had a chance where the goalkeeper made a save. At that time, we looked the team most likely and were on the front foot. They looked after what they had and it was really disappointing to lose the game today in the manner we did.
“Football’s about goals, scoring when you’re on top and killing off teams, but we keep talking about giving silly goals away. I’ll be the first to hold my hands up and say when a team cuts in and scores a ‘worldy’, or if it comes from great football – there’s nothing you can do about it.
“I wanted to see a little bit more spine and a fightback after, and belief we could get back into it, because I believe in them. Obviously with Ike (Ugbo) not with us and George Thomas away, we were limited to any attacking options we could make to change the game. We brought (Andy) Dalesy on and then big Cam (Burgess) on up front, because we had him up there for a couple of minutes last week and he won a flick-on that almost led to an equaliser, but we didn’t put enough crosses in for him in the end in the swirling wind.
“I thought for large spells we dominated the game, and Funso (Ojo) was back to his normal best. It was probably his best performance since I’ve been here, while Ryan was always a threat.”
Matthew Lund and Josh Morris were withdrawn through injury during the second period, and McCall explained the latest afterwards.
He said: “They don’t look good to be honest. Lundy’s was a totally innocuous collision with (Sikiri) Dembele in the middle of the park. He’ll go for an x-ray on his ankle/tibia. It’s not looking good but until we get the results of the x-ray we’re not sure. Josh Morris possibly could have fractured his jaw. We’ll have to wait for the x-rays, but that could be four-to-six weeks. It’s bad enough losing the game but when you lose two influential players like we to have done for a number of weeks, it stretches an already thin squad.
“We have George Thomas to come back into it (from international duty with Wales) but we’re down on bodies. Hopefully Ike won’t be too long. He’s due back from Chelsea on Thursday – he might be a week or two, depending on what he does down there on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. That’s football – you get highs and lows and have to take the knocks. But sometimes it only takes 11 players to win a game and you have to have the character, determination and desire in yourself to bounce back from it. We can do it as a collective. We weren’t poor today, we weren’t outplayed. We gave away two terrible goals.”
McCall feels having no midweek game for the first time in three weeks will help the players in their efforts to bounce back at Wycombe Wanderers next weekend.
He added: “It definitely is a benefit. Sometimes you want to bounce straight back straight away after a defeat (with a game days later) but we’ve had a few games in a short space of time and there were a couple showing a bit of weariness, and they could probably do with a breather. We’re without a game this Tuesday, but we’ll lick our wounds and learn.”
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