Inigo Calderon has rued the softness of the goals his Bristol Rovers side conceded in a 2-0 defeat to Charlton Athletic at The Valley on Tuesday night, shipping both efforts in the first half.
The Gas actually started relatively brightly but found themselves behind after just 13 minutes as Matty Godden pounced in the area with an instinctive finish. That saw Rovers crumble as they relied on Josh Griffiths to keep the score down with some good saves before Josh Edwards fired home a second with a decent finish.
Once again, the Gas produced some nice build-up play in the second half with a triple substitution making a difference. However, they severely lacked end product, ending the night with just five shots with their sole effort on target coming from a Scott Sinclair free-kick.
Reflecting on his team’s second 2-0 defeat away from home within the space of four days, having lost at Wigan Athletic on Saturday, Calderon said post-match: “I think in the first half we started well. I would say that we were all right but all of a sudden we stopped doing things right and we can see the goals we conceded are too soft. We are conceding goals too soft the last couple of weeks. That makes our life more difficult because we are not the most creative team in the world. We have to try to defend better otherwise it’s going to be difficult.
“It’s not easy. The last weeks we conceded too many goals. It’s not like they’re killing us and you know the goal is coming. It’s too soft and it’s [about] the team having more pride of defending our goal. We have to try to be high on the pitch so we don’t have to defend them deep.
“To be fair, in the second half we saw a little bit more pride. We tried to play a little bit more. If I’m honest, if you take the boxes out of the game, I think we were better. But still, in the boxes in our one on one defending, we were worse and us attacking, we didn’t create enough.”
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After surviving a drop down the table over the weekend, the severity of Rovers’ situation was highlighted once again as their seven-point advantage over the relegation zone was slashed to four while dropping down to 19th place.
In the middle of the pitch, the Gas knocked the ball around well with Calderon’s influence already clear. However, a lack of quality in both boxes was a familiar story.
Rovers now face undoubtedly their biggest game of the season on Sunday when they host 18th place Peterborough United in front of the Sky Sports cameras as both teams look to get themselves away from danger as quickly as possible with Posh particularly a surprise to see down there.
“As I say, for me it’s not a surprise. I knew the situation we were in,” the Gas head coach confessed. “That’s why I said after we won against Barnsley that we were not in a good situation. It’s not because I’m negative. I know where we are and I know how difficult it is to go from that situation.
“So it’s a matter of being together. Try to stay together because we have a final on Sunday.”