Football We have a fragile group at the moment, admits Barton
We gave the opportunity for the opponent to get that first goal and then we compound the errors by giving another soft one away
JOEY Barton says his Bristol Rovers squad is a “fragile group” that is low on confidence after they slumped to a 3-1 defeat to Newport County at the Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
The Gas were second best for much of the encounter, with Courtney Baker-Richardson and former Rovers forward Dom Telford putting the Exiles two up after little more than half-an-hour.
A moment of genius from Brett Pitman in first-half stoppage-time gave Rovers a chance to come back into the game, but the Pirates were stung on the counter as Telford made it a brace in front of the travelling fans.
The defeat, their seventh of the season, leaves Rovers 18th in League Two and Barton lamented a sub-standard performance from his side.
“Disappointing,” he said. “We’re back in front of our fans today. They’ve come out in the numbers again and we’ve been poor. Really, really poor.
“We gave the opportunity for the opponent to get that first goal and then we compound the errors by giving another soft one away.
“We managed to score a good goal. A moment of quality from Brett. We start the second half looking like the team who are going to get back into the game and hopefully go and win it.
“And then again, another poor decision at a key moment. We get counter-attacked and then the game is put beyond us.”
With individual errors leading to the second and third goals, Barton was asked in his post-match press conference if he saw a lack of concentration in his players.
“No,” he replied. “I just think it’s a fragile group that’s low on confidence based on what’s gone on before.
“Inch by inch, you’re trying to change that and coming off the back of a spirited second-half performance at Bradford and a good first half at Colchester, that you can bring some momentum to the stadium. At this moment in time, no two performances are looking the same and that’s really frustrating.
“The only way out of it is just working on the training ground and trying to get that solid unit to go out and give ourselves the opportunity to win games of football.”
Barton had been bullish in the
summer months about Rovers’ targets for the season, adamant the Gas would secure promotion back to League One at the first attempt.
His confidence has noticeably declined in recent weeks, accepting that life in League Two is proving much harder than accepted.
The Bristol Post asked the manager if, after 14 games, he believes his side is capable of finishing in the top seven this season.
“After today, you do worry about that, but everybody in our division is beating everybody at this moment in time,” he said.
“We are yet to play consistently
well for a prolonged spell. You would think with the personnel we’ve got, once it settles down and we get relationships built, that will start to unfold.
“It isn’t happening quickly enough for us, but I think we’ve got enough quality in this group to win any game in this division when the penny drops and we put a consistent run together.
“We’ve just come off a run of one defeat in five, unbeaten in three, and that is how we’re going to have to do this at this football club. It’s going to be block by block.
“We’re not going to go 20 games unbeaten, it’s just foolish to think we’re going to do that.
“We need to stop getting defeated so easily, and when we do get a defeat the response has got to be not another defeat.
“We’ve got to stop the bleeding straight away.
“We’ve got to stick together, we’ve got to commit to working hard and the only way out of this is by being truly together and by being committed to the quarters and scrapping and fighting for every single second ball, every single moment on a football pitch.”