Manager Darrell Clarke was visibly shaken by the performance of his side at Altrincham yesterday. For the second time this week Rovers gifted their opponents two goals and on this occasion the home side could have capitalised even more had they been a little more clinical in front of goal and if Steve Mildenhall hadnât been in such good form. Clarke said: âIt wasnât good enough, thereâs no hiding place, itâs as simple as that. We orchestrated our own downfall, gave goals two away and could have given away more the way we defended at times. We all have to stand up and be counted and I have to front it up. Our fans are massively disappointed, and rightly so, as are the players, but I expect a lot better from them. I canât really recall Altrincham opening us up and we gifted them their goals and a number of other chances. Fair play to them, though, as they took their chances and we didnât.â One point from three games is certainly not what was expected at the start of the season and the manager thinks that fear may be playing a part in the poor start. Clarke said: âMental fear is certainly one of the reasons and it only gets worse when you put in performances like that, because whoever is in charge of this club the expectation level is never going to go away. The mistakes we made and the fact we were punished for them means, quite rightly, that we come in for a great deal of criticism and rightly so. But we have to be strong, stay strong, regroup, and go again. I apologise for the performance and Iâm sure the players will be saying the same thing; itâs not good enough. Supporters donât really want to be hearing that though and we have to regroup and go again.â Anger was the overriding feeling after the game. Clarke said: âThere was a lot of anger in the dressing room and rightly so, from my staff and myself. However there is only so much we can do. We have deserved to lose the two games we have played this week and we havenât been anywhere near the form I know we are capable of producing. There are some good players at this football club but they have to stand up, the same as myself and my staff, and make sure they believe in themselves. We havenât started the season as well as we would have liked, and this new group of players have to learn pretty quickly that we canât come to places like Altrincham and defend the way we did today.â http://www.bristolrovers.co.uk/news/article/manager-on-altrincham-defeat-1834856.aspx Clarkeâs men have picked up just one point from their first three fixtures, and Mansell said: âIt was an embarrassment of a game. We turned up and thought, because we were Bristol Rovers, that we were going to turn them over. Altrincham had other ideas and they got two well-deserved goals from mistakes from us. It happened again at Barnet on Tuesday where two individual errors cost us. But just because they make mistakes, we need to regroup as a team, and we didnât do that. We came out a bit better in the second half and we created chances, but we didnât finish them off. I mean you give yourself a mountain to climb when you go two goals down, but unfortunately for us we couldnât get back in it. We were huffing and puffing, but it didnât look like we were going to get the second one.â Meanwhile, on their poor start to the season, Mansell said: âI wanted to win three out of three, I mean everyone in that changing room wanted to win three out of three. Unfortunately weâve picked up one point out of three. We know thatâs not good enough and we know thatâs miles away from whatâs expected of us. But there wonât be anyone beating themselves up as much as us in the changing room." http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Bristo...abels-defeat/story-22757203-detail/story.html
