Athletic manager Ronnie Moore was expectedly in a foul mood after the totally unacceptable performance at Barnsley last Saturday. Moore said, "It’s back to the drawing board after the way Barnsley steamrollered us, and we need to lift everybody up again. Gareth Owen got a very nasty cut from a terrible tackle. It was a two-footed lunge by their player and Gareth got one boot on the knee and one in his shin. I’d left Marc Tierney on the bench because the lad was struggling, but unfortunately we had to throw him back in again. A couple of new faces would help, so a holding midfield player and a defender are hopefully what I’ll start looking for."“I’m not going to accept another performance like that. It wasn’t good enough in any way, shape or form. That game kicked off a big month for us because we’ve got some tremendously tough matches coming up. With Barnsley struggling and having a few players out injured, I thought it was a great chance to make a winning start, but it was bitterly disappointing. We have had some luck recently, so maybe it was coming. But it shows we have a lot of hard work to do."
I have never seen defending like that, it was unbelievable. There was no hunger, no desire and lets be honest it could even have been six and it is difficult to put your finger on what went wrong. But we weren't in it from start to finish and you can't give teams a three-goal start and expect to get something out of it. If you want to be a good side that shouldn't happen at any level. Andy Ritchie will never have an easier game. They cut us open like a knife through butter and I felt sorry for our keeper because he wasn't given a chance with any of the goals."
"It is going to be topsy-turvy all season with other clubs also being inconsistent. No one is going to run away with this division this time. We want to get out of it, but if we keep playing like that we will be doing it at the wrong end. Nobody played well and it was totally unacceptable."