Neal Ardley pulled no punches when assessing his Notts County side’s performance in their 2-2 draw with Ebbsfleet United on Saturday.
The Magpies twice took the lead in Kent but gave away sloppy goals, which saw them only take a point against the Vanarama National League’s bottom club.
And Ardley did not hold back when speaking after the game.
“I’m fuming and the players are disappointed,” the boss revealed. “And so they should be because that was awful.
“I don’t want to be too hard on everyone because we’re working hard to get it right and the effort was there, but we shot ourselves in the foot. The game management was horrendous.
“It was a naïve performance and that isn’t a word I should be using with the experience in this camp.
“We didn’t clear our lines for either goal. The manner in which we gave both of them away was horrendous.”
Ardley was irritated with his side’s inability to retain possession, feeling they caused their own problems throughout the 90 minutes.
“We want to pass the ball and move through the lines,” he said. “For the first 15 minutes of the second half we did it and scored a great goal but then we stopped doing it again.
“It’s not a mentality thing. Look at how many eight-yard passes were misplaced. If they are missing the target and your strikers aren’t holding the ball up, you put yourselves under pressure.
“That’s what happened and that was the problem. We allowed it to become a battle and they looked more likely to win the game.
“We could have come away having not put in a particularly great performance but been professional and won this match, but we didn’t.”
Notts are quickly back into action when Chorley visit Meadow Lane on Monday afternoon and the gaffer wants to see change.
“We have to put it right,” urged Ardley. “No excuses because today wasn’t good enough.
“We didn’t look like we had the legs in the last half-hour, and we need to get them back because we have another game on Monday.
“The only positive is that we’re now three matches unbeaten. Momentum has to be built but we need to do things that get us three points, not one.
“Goals change games so we have to start taking our chances and putting them to bed.”