Fleetwood Town head coach Joey Barton spoke to the media after his sides 1-0 defeat on the road at Burton Albion.
Barton saw his side concede a 89th minute goal after Liam Boyce picked out Ryan Edwards inside the penalty area, which resulted in Nigel Clough and the Brewers claim their fourth win in five league matches.
The defeat sees Town drop to 10th position in League One and two points of the play-off places.
Here’s what Barton had to say in his post-match interview…
On the performance…
We were not fantastic in the first period of the game and rode a luck at times and had to defend our box properly. We probably had the best two chances of the half, Wes [Burns] was sent through twice and didn’t manage to work the goalkeeper so he’ll be disappointed with that.
“In these types of games the first goal is going to be decisive. We came out in the second half and we certainly had more territory and possession. We tweaked the shape and to get done by a throw-in that’s been crossed into our box is really disappointing.
“Today, we weren’t at the level that we know we can be as a football team, so a huge emphasis has to be on making sure that we are at that level at home next Saturday."
On the reaction after half-time…
“I said to the lads that we’ve thrown a point away because there wasn’t much happening at the stage of the game and at that point we should be closing the game out and certainly trying to win it but not losing the game. It’s a point dropped.”
“We knew it was going to be a tough game today. Burton gave us a really good game at our place earlier in the season where we won 4-1, but we knew they were a better side than that.
“We’ve been second best in departments that you can’t afford to be second in if you want to win football games. We can’t afford to give hard earned points on the road away, certainly in the last couple of minutes of games because you will not get promoted out of this league unless you become a very difficult team to beat.”
On the squad…
“To go in and scream and shout may get It out of my system, but what does it do for the players? You’ve got to be pragmatic and find solutions for them.
“I think the days of a manager being a screamer and a shouter are long gone. The younger players just don’t respond to that. Our group in dressing room are very disappointed. I’ve spoke about this many times before, the team never give up and they kept going, kept scrapping, kept fighting for each other and we believe that will take us a long way.
“We want to mount a serious promotion challenge this year and we’re ahead of where we were at this stage last year, and that has to be something that we can latch onto. There’s a long way to go this season.”