Notts County Manager Shaun Derry gave a very honest and frank assessment of his side’s performance in the 3-0 defeat away to Oldham Athletic on Saturday.
Two goals in the space of two first half minutes gifted Oldham the initiative in the game at SportsDirect.com Park, at a time when Notts just looked to be establishing a foothold in the game and it was this that Derry began his analysis of the game with.
He said of that period of the game: “At that stage of the game we’d had some good passages of play, got into some really dangerous areas, I just felt we were starting to make our mark on the afternoon.
“Then a crazy five minutes, an absolutely crazy five minutes, where people didn’t do their jobs and at the end of it you’re two-nil down and you’re chasing the game and we never really recovered from it.
“We’ve come to a stage now in this season where I’ve too often come and spoken to you guys quite candidly and expressed my disappointment at the goals that we’ve conceded.
“Again, I sound like a broken record at the minute, the goals that we’re giving away, absolutely giving away,” he added.
“With the greatest of respect to Oldham, credit where credit’s due, they fully deserved the win this afternoon but we gifted the win, we gifted the transition of power. We had it, we had the power and then two ridiculous situations occurred and we’re two-nil down and it changes the whole complex of the afternoon.
“Fair credit, from Oldham’s angle they’ll be saying that was a well-executed goal but again we can always look back on the frailties that happened in the situation, it was from us, it came from poor play, we gifted them the opportunities to go down the side and one person in the box, four of our shirts around him and he managed to get a head on it, that’s disappointing from my angle.
“I’m pretty tough on the guys in terms of taking responsibility and at this moment in time I just don’t feel that we’re doing that either individually or collectively, I just feel that that responsibility of individual jobs has gone out of our game at this moment in time.”
Derry ended his post-match interview on a defiant note though, insisting that the players and coaching staff will go back to the training ground next week determined to put things right.
“I don’t want us to get, once again, too down and dejected because we go to work again, this is what we do,” he concluded.
Subscribers can watch the full post-match interview with Shaun Derry on Magpie Player.