Fleetwood Town fell to a 1-0 defeat against Scunthorpe United on Saturday afternoon at Highbury.
Joey Barton's side created many chances in the first half and had spells of dominance, but couldn’t seem to finish any chances.
The narrative continued into the second half, with the Cod Army continuing to make chances in front of goal, but unfortunately for the home side, Ashley Eastham deflected substitute, Levi Sutton’s low cross into the roof of the net late in the match.
Barton spoke to the media post-match about the result and the match...
On Saturday afternoon’s fixture against Scunthorpe….
“Tough, tough to take. Really frustrating really, especially when the opposition haven’t had a shot on target and have managed to win the game. There's disappointment because there is only one side that looks like winning that and again our little bit of naivety has crept in, and until we learn those lessons we’re not going to mount a promotion challenge.
“The league table represents that, we’re in the middle of the table, I think we dropped to 10th after the performance. If you want to get in the promotion, play-off picture and the automatic spots then you have got to be a more consistent side. Unfortunately, we are still learning those lessons. We’re not at that level right now.
“I know I have inherited a team that was fighting relegation for large parts of last season, but my intentions, and the intentions of the coaching staff here is to build a squad capable of challenging for promotion out of this division.
“The most frustrating thing for me is the ideas and the things that are offered to the players, are there, it is just the execution and the ability to find that level of consistency. It’s frustrating for us and I know it’s frustrating for the players, because I don’t know how you perform in the manner that they do on Tuesday night and then they don’t back that up. It’s a game that we should never ever drop points in.”
On Ross Wallace’s performance in midfield…
“He was excellent, Ross (Wallace). He definitely doesn’t deserve to be on the losing side. A few lads have got good stuff to pick out of that but again you win and lose as a team so Ross will be disappointed.
“The reality of it is that we have just got to get back to what we know best which is working hard, putting structures in place. There are going to be players who I think are going to have to improve a great deal if they are going to stay at the football club because as I said, our intent is to build a team capable in the next few years of getting out of this division. They’ve got to improve quickly and cut out the inconsistency that we are having to keep affecting us and stopping our momentum.”
On recruiting before the transfer deadline next Thursday…
“I’ve made it blatantly obvious of what’s needed without going into too much detail. Everybody is aware of it, and it’s now a case of people bringing those people in. It’s always a difficult window to recruit, it’s obviously a lot easier to recruit at this level in the summer, but we do need reinforcements and people to come in and challenge for first team slots.
“Today you’re looking at your bench and looking for someone to make an impact, and we are not probably able to do that yet, it’s pretty much a like-for-like. We don’t have players who are capable of lighting up games coming off the bench, and maybe that’s a bit to do with their psychology as much as anything.
“We have to have the ability for the squad to have competition for places because I think at this moment in time, we don’t have enough of it and in a really good group you have competition for places. In certain areas we have that, but we don’t have it right across the team, and it’s important we get that.”