Joey Barton blamed 'naivety' as Bristol Rovers were beaten 1-0 by Accrington Stanley at the Mem on Saturday, extending their winless run in League One to seven games.
Five defeats have come in that time, and this one was brought about by Joe Pritchard's header from a quickly-taken corner – the fast service from a ball boy irking the Rovers manager – nine minutes into the second half.
Rovers were disjointed throughout a scrappy game and have not won since beating Oxford United in BS7 42 days ago, keeping them in 21st place in the table after 10 games with Exeter City next up in seven days' time.
"I don’t think we were anywhere near as productive as we were last week, but I think the scoreline represents what the game was," Barton said. "It was an evenly-fought game and was going to be (about) the team that got the first goal.
"I don’t think we’ve done enough to deserve to win a game in our stadium. You have to argue if they did enough, as I say, there wasn’t much between the two sides. Maybe a bit of gamesmanship and nous and a bit of intelligence, certainly for the goal. Our ball boy takes a quick ball to their player, they take a quick corner and we’ve switched off. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot in that regard.
"It’s frustrating at the minute. Everything that can go wrong, seems to go wrong and we’re pining to get our best team out on the pitch and stop playing square pegs in round holes.
"I have five or six players who could well be big players and start for us away from where I want to be. As Murphy’s Law would have it, they all seem to be in the same area of the pitch, so tough to take. We’re frustrated, we’re disappointed, but we’ve got to be better."
In the build-up to the game, Barton zeroed in on Accrington's threat from cleverly-worked set plays as something Rovers had to be prepared for, so it was galling that the game was decided by a goal from exactly that source.
Barton says his players were caught short when setting up for the corner by the ball being quickly relayed to the taker. The ball was played to Sean McConville, who lifted the ball into the centre where Pritchard headed home unmarked.
But the manager admits his team were outsmarted by John Coleman's side.
"The key for us is I thought they were sharper," Barton said. "Playing against John’s teams, they’re always switched on. Someone like McConville is waiting for someone to switch off and I think we showed a little bit of naivety.
"We thought the danger had passed, we actually had control of the ball in the middle of the pitch and gave it away needlessly. It led to a counter and a really good block from Bobby Thomas.
"And then at that point, it was almost like ‘OK, we can take a breather here because the danger has passed. As it was, I think our ball boy, they don’t throw much quick ball in for us but ended up giving them a quick ball and the goal comes from that.
"I think there is a lot of naivety in certain parts of our play that we must eradicate if we are going to be successful going forward."
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