Luke Leahy says Paul Tisdale didn’t hold back in the dressing room after Bristol Rovers’ 2-1 defeat to Rochdale, and the left-back accepts the players deserved the manager’s brutal assessment of their performance.
The Gas are hanging dangerously above the drop zone in 19th, just one point above the relegation places after Saturday’s loss, and the usually calm Tisdale showcased his dismay at his players after the final whistle.
“We deserved what he said to us in the dressing room and I don’t blame him because we know we can’t keep losing games like that”, Leahy told reporters.
“On Tuesday we got plaudits for a good 0-0 draw away to Peterborough but we’ve gone and let ourselves down with that result.
“I thought we played some good football and put a lot of pressure on them and their backline but we’re not going to win games by conceding from set-pieces.”
Much to Leahy’s disappointment, leaking goals from set-plays has been Rovers’ Achilles heel in recent weeks. Charlton Athletic, Crewe Alexandra, Oxford United and Rochdale have all scored goals from set plays against Rovers in the past fortnight, with all four of those games resulting in defeat. The 28-year-old says enough is enough.
He continued: “It’s so frustrating because if we knew the causes of our mistakes then we’d stop it immediately. Every team looks at set-pieces because they’re so big in games so we need to make sure they’re going in our favour rather than conceding from them all the time.
“We can look at the way we conceded, the way we set up and I’m sure we’ll work on it in training. They’re soft goals which makes it more frustrating.
“It’s not like we’ve changed our set up or anything since Tuesday, it just resembles the sloppy run we’re on. We don’t want to get to 12 games to go and we’re still seeing the same things.”
Despite the Gas’ poor form, Leahy remains upbeat and optimistic, claiming his side still have the ability to turn things around ahead of Tuesday's visit to Accrington Stanley.
"We have a chance to put things right and into practice Tuesday, sometimes you need a scruffy goal or something just to get going again," the defender said.
"We can’t keep saying we’ll sort it out next time because it’s about performing now.
“We’ve played some nice football and got some good results from the Blackpool, Plymouth and Wimbledon games not long ago so there’s no doubt we can do the same again. It’s just the last four or five weeks we just haven’t been able to get that win."
