Matt Taylor has stated that his Bristol Rovers side were “too weak in too many moments” of their 3-2 defeat at Peterborough United.
The Gas started the game poorly and were 2-0 down just after half-an-hour after goals from Kwame Poku and Ricky-Jade Jones before then conceding a third from Malik Mothersille just after the hour-mark.
However, two goals from substitutes Luke McCormick and Gatlin O’Donkor a minute apart set up the possibility of a sensational comeback when hope seemed lost with Shaq Forde denied an equaliser by a great save from Jed Steer.
Rovers couldn’t find the third goal and subsequently fell to a third consecutive defeat in which they had been second-best for most of the game.
“We were shaky as a group in that first half,” Taylor said post-match. “We were not close enough to the play often enough to make a difference. We were on the floor last week at the end of the game but then as that first half progressed, we ended up on the floor in that, both physically and mentally, I think.
“Too weak in too many moments of the game. Disconnected. Really poor in terms of coming out on top in individual moments of the game and we had no connection off the back of it.
“The goals are incredibly poor goals and all of a sudden we’ve turned into a shaky team defensively on the back of last week which is so strange to see. And then all of a sudden, a couple of substitutes had a real impact in terms of their physicality, first and foremost, and their movement, and then the game was just a totally different game.
“As much as we’d probably gone on the back of last week in the first half, I think it’s fair to say they went in that second half and we probably should have got something out of the game.
“I can say it’s a young group of senior players who are making mistakes as well,” the Rovers manager added. “It’s just a little bit of an understanding that regardless of formation, structure, setup, system, absolutely anything, it’s still coming out on top when the ball’s in around my radius. They got it in front and behind, which is a strange one to say because usually as a manager, you can think, okay, they’re getting too much time on the ball, but in a good shape. They got it front and back and side today for that first half.
“Then the difference was we didn’t change shape, it was just the same personnel second half. [The] difference was night and day. They started coming out on top or we started coming out on top and then the difference in terms of where we were on the pitch and we can get crossing in the box because we’re high up the pitch often enough.
“It’s the same personnel, it’s just execution but even within a game and within a season, there can’t be too much inconsistency because when you’re inconsistent and you go behind, you give yourself an awful lot to do if that game had gone on any longer we get something out of it.”
The Gas had started the second half brightly with Ruel Sotiriou missing a decent chance from close range before Peterborough scored their third but the momentum completely shifted on the back of their quickfire goals as Posh crumbled.
All five substitutes McCormick, O’Donkor, Luke Thomas, Grant Ward and Shaq Forde made positive impacts off the bench, especially O’Donkor, which will inevitably give Taylor something to think about ahead of next weekend’s game at home to Wycombe Wanderers.
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However, bar being much-improved for most of the second half, it was another defensively poor showing from the Gas on the back of losing 4-0 to Wigan Athletic last weekend with their three clean sheets in four games now feeling like a distant memory.
Once they had found confidence on the back of scoring two quick goals, Rovers showed their quality with Taylor saying: “For this group, it’s the hope that kills you because we can show what we could be as a team but when, in our poor moments, we can’t go under to the extent where we’re behind in games and it’s too much to do, even within that game because the feel of it is just too big a extreme. It’s like when we’re as high as a kite for the last second half and the last 20 minutes of that game.
“It would kill me. It would probably kill a lot of people. It would kill us off and, like I say, when you’re as poor as we were, you don’t survive for long enough.
“In the second half we were miles better. The biggest thing is, is you talk about belief and confidence, obviously what happened last week shook us and then those goals are so uncharacteristic for that group and that is where all of a sudden the pressure cooker builds in the game and on the pitch.
“If I had to change shape at half time, then it’d be a straightforward answer in terms of, we change shape next week because it suits us a bit better. We didn’t change anything. We made subs as the second half went on. We didn’t change anything. The team just looked totally different and we have a little bit of an academy feel of us at the moment.”