Joey Barton lamented the worst performance of his Bristol Rovers tenure and apologised to the fans that travelled to see Saturday's 5-1 defeat at League One strugglers Morecambe.
Barton described the output of some of his players at the Mazuma Stadium as "embarrassing", questioning whether it was worth the money they are paid as the Gas slipped to 12th in the table.
Goalkeeper Ellery Balcombe made an unfortunate start on debut with Dan Crowley's long-range shot proving too hot to handle as Morecambe took a first-half lead, but Rovers were still in the contest at the interval. Then did things start to spiral out of control, with a James Connolly own goal and a third though Donald Love coming within moments of the resumption.
Cole Stockton and Adam Mayor piled on more misery for the Gas, with Scott Sinclair missing a penalty in between before Aaron Collins popped up with a goal of scant consolation in the last minute of the 90.
"Probably the worst 60-70-minute performance, if not 90-minute performance, since I’ve been here," Barton said. "It was really poor and I can only apologise to the fans who have paid their hard-earned cash and given up their time on Saturday to follow us here.
"That is not acceptable and all you can do is apologise to the (the fans). It was embarrassing, actually.
"If I had my way, I’d make the players pay for their tickets and their travel because that was an embarrassing performance from our players.
"Do they deserve to be paid? I wouldn’t pay you if you turned up and did a job in my house and did it to the standard of some of our boys today. I’d be chucking you out of the house and never allowing you back in and you certainly wouldn’t be getting a pound note off me.
"But that’s the beauty of football, isn’t it? The lads get paid regardless. They have got the PFA and all that to protect them for those reasons, but based on output, I wouldn’t have paid some of our lads the money they are getting paid for that performance because it was unacceptable."
Barton was particularly disappointed with the performances of his experienced players on a dismal afternoon for Rovers, and he manager reiterated his desire to be active in the final days of the transfer window, with the deadline on Tuesday night.
"You expect the mistakes and those decisions to be made from lads who are 19 and making their league debut, not lads who are a few hundred games into their careers and in their 30s," he said.
"Three or four days to go in the window and we need to bring in four or five players if we want to try to get promoted. For us, you have got to beat these teams.
"We have been excellent beating Cheltenham away and Cambridge away, but we lose here comfortably today and we lose at Accrington last week. If you want to get promoted, you can’t drop points there for me."
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