Joey Barton admits Bristol Rovers' performance at Port Vale on Saturday was "miles short" of what he expected as they fell to a 2-0 defeat.
The Gas were below par for the vast majority of the contest at Vale Park, where Rovers shipped two soft first-half goals to the Valiants, although 19-year-old goalkeeper Jed Ward could take no blame in just his second career start for the club as Ellis Harrison and Tom Pett put the hosts in command.
Barton rang the changes early in the second half, using all five substitutes at his disposal, and although the intensity levels rose, they could not break down a Vale side that was determined to hold onto their lead as they looked to pull clear of the League One relegation zone.
"I don’t think we fired on all cylinders, certainly in the first half," Barton said. We were fine with the ball without causing any real moments of danger and then we just get a bit sloppy in terms of we don’t defend a throw properly.
"It leads to a corner and we go a goal down and I was disappointed with the response to that. We were second best to everything for the next five or 10 minutes after that and we gave them a bit of confidence and they managed to get a second goal in there.
"I was tempted to make the changes a bit earlier, but I gave the lads time to respond and we’ve utilised the squad again and it was an opportunity to look at people with next season in mind.
"Some lads have had auditions today. I’m happy with some parts of it but the result and the level of performance, certainly in the first period, was not at the expected standard for us going forwards.
"Defending the first phase, it’s very important you get your contact on that, and we didn’t defend the second phase after that. We’ve got no qualms, we’ve got to be better in that regard.
"People are auditioning for places on the bus next season to hopefully improve and when you see moments like that, as a team we have to defend that better. We can say ‘Have we got anything on the line? Are they a bit more motivated than us for what’s at stake?’ But that is absolutely no excuse not to defend your goal properly and we must be better."
Rovers remain 15th in the table, with their League One status confirmed following Cambridge United's defeat at Plymouth Argyle on Saturday. Vale climbed to 17th to move eight points clear of the drop zone.
With half an eye on next season with Rovers' League One status confirmed, Barton will make decisions on his squad over the coming weeks as he looks to build a side that is capable of contending at the top end of the division. He made clear that Saturday's performance was well short of the required level.
"I just said to the lads in there that everyone has had a fair crack of the whip over the season and when you sit down with them at the end of the season and you give them their appraisals or you have a conversation with them, it’s really important for us to look people in the eye and give them a solid reasoning for the decisions we’re going to make," he said.
"I said to them in there ‘Look, at the end of the season there’ll be nobody who will be able to argue with anything we’ve said because we’ve given you more than ample opportunity to show us what you can do and, unfortunately, we’re not running a charity.
"We wanted to stay in the division this year, which we have done, but I don’t want to finish 15th, 16th, 17th next year, and any player who might think we’re happy with staying up next year will be seriously considering his state of mind if he thinks that’s going to be the case when we report back for pre-season.
"We’ve got a job to do and we’ve got to finish the league off strongly, but we won’t get any joy if we’re defending the way we did for the first two goals.
"Everyone’s aware of the expectations and what I want next year. The lads have been superb for me; we’re a newly-promoted side that came up from League Two in mad circumstances and we’ve stayed up from games to spare.
"We were miles short of our expected output today, certainly in the first period. I felt the lads had a right go in the second half when we made a lot of changes and got minutes in there.
"We’ve lost the battle today, but we’ll certainly learn from it and I’m going to experiment between now and the end of the season because I want to challenge for promotion out of this division next season.
"We’ve got to shake the snow globe to see what we’ve got at our disposal before we look to recruit in the summer."
Rovers face three more away games in succession, starting with Tuesday's trip to Plymouth before heading to Peterborough United on Saturday. An away day at Shrewsbury Town follows on May 2 before Bolton Wanderers visit the Mem on the final day.
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