Head coach Scott Brown spoke to the media after his side’s loss to Shrewsbury Town at Highbury on Saturday afternoon.
Even though Town finished the game with nine men, the Cods managed to create some gilt-edged chances throughout the game as they found the back of the net through Jack Marriott, but he was in an offside position, as well as having another cleared off the line.
Here’s what the gaffer had to say after the game:
On the key moments from the Shrewsbury clash…
“You can't make mistakes and that isn't just one person, because mentally that's when it becomes a hard thing to get out of and it turns into a losing streak, we have to understand where we are in the table is nowhere near good enough.
“The way we play, the performance levels are good, but there is a blatant difference between the performance levels and the score. Every team would much rather the score was in your favour.
“Teams can do direct, it's just whether we deal with the physical battle and the second balls, we just haven't become that finished article in the box, we come close like hitting the post or the keeper makes good saves, we even get the ball right across the six-yard box.
“Lynchy [Jay Lynch] has to just let him go past him and, if he scores at that moment, he scores as we can’t afford to go down to 10 men, then we go down to nine men later in the game as well which is something we never want to see.”
On mistakes in the midfield costing us…
“Even when we went down to 10 men, we were the better team, throughout the whole game we were the better team, but it’s a lack of concentration for one minute. Somebody takes a sloppy touch, they run though, you’ve got a set of moulds on – that’s what is going to happen at the back.
“For a midfielder, we should always have studs on, that’s one thing we need to focus on. You make those last-ditch slide tackles, which I understand, but you can’t slip at that time, I know it is a mistake, but we need to take that one on.
“I thought when we put CJ [Carl Johnston] in the middle of the park, his understanding, his willingness to get after the ball, and his eagerness to get the ball was there. It is a nasty streak you have to have, and he did it really well.”
On having to go to Charlton with a light squad…
“Now, we’ve got to go away to Charlton next week with a smaller squad, we’ve got a couple of suspensions coming up, and a couple of injuries as well, so the squad is quite light as it is.
“We are trying to boost the squad but, at the same time, we’ve not managed to get our three strikers near the park at the same time, which is a bit devastating because we need them on the park to score us goals – we’ve had to rely on a young kid coming through.
“The subs that came on did fine, we were still in full control and I never really felyt like we were going to lose a goal that whole game, but I also felt like we were really going to score a goal."