Gill happy to take blame for performance against Oxford
Jerry Gill apologised to the travelling supporters as Bath City suffered their biggest August Bank Holiday Monday defeat for 96 years.
The Romans have only won one of their last 12 contests on that day but their first, a 1-5 loss at Pontypridd in 1925, was the heaviest before Monday’s crushing.
It was the eighth time since the start of last season that Oxford scored four or more in a game as David Oldfield’s men came back from behind to rip the Romans apart.
Gill understood his fans’ frustrations after back-to-back defeats over the weekend.
“Rightly so they’ve had a few things to say,” he said. “I don’t mind taking it, they can aim it at me. That’s not a problem – I picked the team, I put it out there.
“Apologies from me and my players for that performance because we’ve had such good support here.
“In a nutshell we didn’t compete well enough in the second half and deserved nothing from the game. We folded.
“We didn’t defend well enough. The goals aren’t what we want to be part of. Lunging legs, not putting bodies on the line, I don’t think we laid a glove on them physically.
“In the end you want the whistle to go because keeping it down to four or five was going to be a tough ask.”
City coped well initially with Oxford’s bright start and took the lead through Elliott Frear before the afternoon unravelled as the Romans were undone by a couple of decisions which went against them.
“I’m not blaming the referee for the result by any means,” Gill reiterated. “We capitulated after halftime.
“We were very good for 35 minutes and scored a fantastic goal. We looked in control in midfield and comfortable knocking it around at the back.
“It’s two horrendous decisions that leads to their first two goals.
“The referee’s two assistants have made two strange calls. For the first, Jack [Batten] goes to ground, makes a tackle and the ball hits his hand on the floor. I was told at a league meeting if the ball hits a player’s hand on the floor it won’t be a free-kick.
“We had to defend it better but it shouldn’t have been awarded.
“For the second we should have had a clear corner, it then comes down their right, the ball blatantly goes out of play for a throw-in and it’s a resulting cross which goes in, against our luck.
“At half-time I said there’s nothing you can do about two decisions – lets get back on and get control of the game. But we didn’t.”
City’s cause wasn’t helped by the dismissal of Eddie Jones against his former club, meaning he’ll miss the trip to Braintree Town in nine days’ time.
“It looked like a clean tackle, but when you’re on a yellow card and you go into a challenge like that it gives the referee an option to make that decision,” said Gill.
“When we went down to ten men we had to ask people to do a lot of work, they looked really tired and weren’t shifting up the pitch or laterally. If you’re not doing that a man down the opposition will find pockets of space.
“Oxford came out with the same energy in the second half as they started the first and we didn’t cope with it.”
Gill confirmed he kept his postmatch message to the players “short, sharp and to the point.”
“I haven’t said too much to them if I’m being honest,” he said. “It’s best to go away and reflect.
“We’ll get the players to look back at the game with us. That performance can’t happen again.
“Hopefully the players prepare properly for the next one.”
City were without Mo Touray (hip) and Callum Wood, who tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss Saturday’s visit of league leaders Dartford, who’ve won all four of their matches this season.
“People will say it’s Dartford and they’re flying but it doesn’t matter to me,” said Gill. “We’ve got to put our personality back on our game.
“You can’t tell me that with Callum out of the team that we’ve become that weak to concede seven goals in two games.
“Of course he’s missed but we’ve got more than enough in that dressing room to step in and defend exactly the same way.
“We’ll sit down with individuals and as a group collectively and got to the bottom of why this result happened.”
Bath City suffered their first defeat of the season on Saturday against a previously winless Chelmsford City side.
Adam Morgan netted from the spot and Dara Dada finished off a counter with a smart strike from 22 yards, the goals just before and after the interval.
The Romans had a good penalty shout turned down in the first half when Tom Wraight appeared to handle Alex Fletcher’s goalbound shot.
Cody Cooke made it three goals in three games for the Romans but it wasn’t enough.
Bath started brightly as a vital Dave Winfield interception denied Alex Fletcher an opener.
Chelmsford responded when Callum Harrison’s telling cross was headed towards goal by Morgan at an acute angle but Ryan Clarke batted behind.
City were denied a penalty on the half hour when Fletcher saw his shot charged down by the arm of Wraight following a scramble but vociferous appeals were waved away.
Chelmsford were awarded a spot-kick of their own when Morgan skipped past Raynes and was adjudged to have been tripped by the defender, who was making his first Bath start since March 2020.
Morgan took the penalty and dispatched it with ease into the roof of the net.
The Clarets added a second three minutes after half-time. A mix-up in attack saw Raynes’ ball intercepted by Dada who exchanged passes with Harrison on the counter and fired superbly low past Clarke.
Roared on by a 1000+ crowd, City enjoyed good spells of possession but goalkeeper Jacob Marsden wasn’t called into action until the 81st minute, parrying away Fletcher’s stinging drive with Cooke blazing the rebound over from 10 yards.
The Romans finally found a way through when debutant Marlee Francois’ cross was headed home by Cooke from close range in the last meaningful action of the game.