Goalkeeper Adam Collin gave us his verdict on the Swindon away defeat shortly after full-time on Saturday.
“It’s disappointing,” he said. “We’d done the hard work in the first half when we were playing against the conditions, and we then took the lead, but after that we just didn’t see the game out. Swindon are a good team, but some of our decision making was very naïve and it cost us.
“There is a lot of disappointment in the dressing room because the boys worked incredibly hard, but when you turn the ball over the amount of times we did in both halves you’re always going to get punished at this level. You simply can’t do it."
“We’re an honest group and we’ve sat and spoken about the game in the dressing room," he added. "The gaffer has made the point that our turnovers cost us, and a lot of the senior boys have had a good frank discussion about making the right decisions at the right time.
“I think people can see we want to play good football and pass the ball, but when the boys have the ball at their feet they have to make the right decisions. For the second goal, we had the ball on the halfway line and 30 seconds later they’ve got a corner which they score from. We can’t do that at this level because we’ll always get punished.
“They’re a good team, and from what I’ve seen I think they’ll be up there at the end of the season. The first half was tough because we were playing against the wind, but I thought we managed it really well. They had an early spell of pressure and got a lot of corners, but we dealt with that, we just caused our own problems in the end.
“I’ve just had a look at the stats and I think they had 26 shots with 11 on target, and a lot of that was of our own doing. You expect a tough time away from home, but we can’t keep on doing that throughout the season otherwise we’ll get punished every week.
"We can’t concede that many shots, especially not that many on target, and we have to manage the game so much better. I wouldn’t say there were players today who had a particularly bad game, it was just our decision making and naivety at times which cost us."
Looking ahead to some important weeks to come, he said: “The league hasn’t changed that much and anybody can still beat anybody.
"I think Cheltenham battered Scunthorpe at the weekend, so the results can be anything. We think Swindon will be up there and we’d like to be up there with them, but we can’t go about our business like this if we genuinely want to be part of it.
“I think we need another striker and another midfielder in to help, and with plenty of experience if we can. Someone who has been around the leagues who knows what it’s all about, I think that’s what we lacked today."
Having been handed the captain's armband for the season, he confirmed that he felt it was an honour to lead out his hometown club.
“I’m very proud to wear the armband and I’m delighted that the gaffer and coaching staff chose me," he said. "Myself and Byron [Webster] will do it together and manage the dressing room together, and hopefully manage us on the pitch better than we saw at the weekend.
“It hasn’t massively changed my role in the dressing room, I’m the oldest and probably one of the most experienced in there, and I’ve been at the club the longest, so I’ll just carry on going about my business how I always have. If things need saying, I’ll say it whether I’ve got the armband or not.
“I’d love to captain us to a promotion this year. This is my sixth season with the club and that’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m just glad I’ve got the opportunity to do it."
And on the first round Carabao Cup game against Barnsley on Tuesday night, he said: “We’ve got the Barnsley game before we get back to league action and we just need to be a bit more professional in games, especially when we go ahead. We need to see those games through.
“We’ve got a small squad so we obviously have to manage that during the cup competitions, with the league being our bread and butter. We need to go and enjoy the game, there’s no expectations on us to win it, so we can go and play with a bit more freedom.
“We obviously want to win every game we play. We know it'll be tough and not many people will gve us a chance but we’ll go there and give it our best shot. We’ll play our own style and just see how we get on.
“It’s a different environment to a league game. We said that about the friendlies compared to league fixtures, and it’s the same in cup games. The pressure eases off a little bit, especially when you’re playing a team two leagues above you. We just want to go there and give a good account of ourselves."
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