Taylor Moore confessed he believes that Bristol Rovers players are lacking a bit of belief in themselves on the back of falling to a 2-0 defeat at home to Blackpool on Tuesday night.
The Gas failed to record a single shot on target for the first time this season against a Blackpool side with the worst defensive record in League One and who had gone almost two months without a victory in the league.
Rovers had produced an impressive display up at Mansfield Town three days prior, winning 1-0, and came into the contest with confidence with previous performances also being decent in parts. However, it was a display that lacked offensive quality, something that has been a common theme for the Gas so far this campaign.
“I think a little bit of belief in ourselves,” Moore told Bristol Live when asked what he feels is lacking from an attacking perspective. “With belief, you also have to match it with the quality. and I think each and every one of us tonight at certain moments just lacked that little bit of finesse or that little bit of composure and quality to get us up the pitch.
“We’ve got one of the best strikers in the EFL and he’s not getting shots. So how can we work with him and actually provide more opportunities for him to score? We’ve got Luke McCormick who obviously scored his goal last week and we’re trying to provide but we just got to work that little bit harder and actually feed these boys and give them the opportunity to express themselves.
“We see Shaq [Forde] in any one-v-one position and he gets fans on the edge of their seat and obviously I’m trying my best to back him up but it’s often like 70 yard sprints because he’s too fast.
“But we’re working towards it. We’ve just got to get better and quickly because we know that in this league you just get punished if you’re playing Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday. Games come thick and fast and if you’re not actually putting the ball in the back of the net, you’re always going to struggle to keep a clean sheet.”
Rovers are currently 14th in League One with a record of six wins, three draws and eight defeats in their 17 matches so far. Meanwhile, they’re six points off of the play-off positions and six points clear of the relegation zone; they are the definition of midtable.
With six clean sheets in those 17 games though, the joint-third best record in the division, the centre-back-turned-right-back’s main priority hasn’t been a massive issue, particularly of late. However, their record of 17 goals is the joint-10th worst record in the division and is the clear area that needs improvement.
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Tuesday night’s game was the first match all season across all competitions in which Rovers failed to record a shot on target as inconsistency continues to affect this squad.
The Gas recruited 16 players over the summer with this very much a new-look team and Moore, who was one of those 16 arrivals, believes that, despite the frustrations, at this moment in time the team are where they should be.
“I actually think we are where we probably should be,” the defender exclaimed. “I think the expectation from the club, the fans and ourselves is to push forward. We were 13th going into today with an ambition to kind of push up the table, which is where we all want to be. But we are, like I said, a new team, a young team, but we have got the quality and it’s just not coming out at the minute in our play, in our build up.
“We look at Blackpool. They’re a team lacking confidence, yet they were able to play through the thirds and actually cause us some issues tonight. So we’ve got to kind of look at ourselves and think, right, how can we do this better? Whether that’s in a meeting on Thursday morning and pointing at individuals and asking them just to give that little bit more.
“The passion’s there, we’ve just got to kind of narrow it down to where we can actually get better and keep adding that one per cent, two per cent every day.
“But I genuinely think our play and how fluid we are with our play and our kind of plans of attacks need to be better and that’s something that we’ve got to look at ourselves and be honest with, because, like I said, the quality is there. We’ve got some very exciting forward players, we’re solid at the back when we can be, and we just got to work a little bit better getting the ball through midfield and up into the final third.”