Saddlers boss Darrell Clarke insists that his team can’t excuse the type of performance that was put in against Morecambe on Tuesday evening.
Goals from Steven Old and Carlos Mendes-Gomes gave the visitors all three points and Clarke admitted that his side were sloppy throughout the game and that they were nowhere near good enough.
“A shocker - we can’t excuse that performance,” said Clarke.
“After the penalty miss we got very sloppy and conceded another goal from a set piece.
“We got going a bit towards the end of the match and then we get done with a sucker punch right at the death but it was nowhere near good enough, we know that.
“The fans have every right to feel angry and disappointed with that performance, so I hold my hands up, there’s no excuses from myself.
“We’re disappointed to have back-to-back home league wins under our belt, getting a bit of momentum, but that’s nowhere near the standards we’ve set ourselves.
“The buck stops with me on that one, so I’ll take it on the chin.
“It’s been a couple of very poor games where we’ve had opportunities, but we haven’t played well enough with the ball.
“I don’t think they’ve (Carlisle & Morecambe) had many opportunities either but we’ve been slack.
“When you’re playing second bottom at home and you get that opportunity to take the lead, that takes some pressure off. When you don’t take that chance, the pressure intensifies, rightly so, that’s not a dig at the fans, that’s the way it is at home.
“With some of our performances this season I thought we’d turned a corner, obviously we haven’t and there’s still loads of work to do but we can’t come out here and defend the performance, we were sloppy.
“We looked lethargic, but if you take the lead you get a bit of confidence and go on to potentially win the game, but we can’t use that as an excuse.”