Paul Dickov admitted that the 2-0 home defeat by Swindon Town was unacceptable. After the disappointing fifth home league defeat of the campaign, Dickov was scathing of his underachievers.
The manager said, “What I saw in the first half was a lack of pride in their individual performances, a lack of desire and a lack of professionalism in what we have worked on all week. We spoke about being on a good run and this is when we are at our worst. Yet again they have shown me they cannot put performances in on a consistent basis. You cannot afford to do that against a good team like Swindon or, in fact, against bad teams. If we don’t have work rate, effort, desire and personal pride, and there was laziness in some cases, you are never going to win a game.”
“Without us playing well, and Swindon being on top, it should have been a scrappy 0-0 at half time. You cannot just get results when the pressure is on. There ought to be pressure to get results all the time. I am hurting because it was as poor a performance as we have had for a long time and the people here today didn’t deserve it. The players know exactly how I feel – it was unacceptable. They will be in tomorrow and all week working to put things thing.”