Darrell Clarke was frustrated and disappointed following the Gas’ defeat against Tranmere Rovers at the Memorial Stadium.
The Pirates were looking to return to winning ways after back-to-back defeats in Sky Bet League Two, but the visitors enjoyed the better chances in the first half and gained the lead through Nathan Smith's clever header.
Connor Jennings netted a brace for Tranmere in the second half to put the visitors in a commanding lead before Josh Davison added a fourth with just over ten minutes left to play. Alfie Chang scored a consolation for the hosts, but the Pirates fell to a defeat.
Speaking to BRTV after the match, Clarke reflected honestly on the defeat.
Darrell, disappointing defeat there. How do you reflect on it?
“I’m angry. I’m very angry. I’ll say to my players that they represent me and that represents nothing of what I’m about. Okay. I’ll take accountability for it; it’s my team. My set of players. That’s two home games, eight goals conceded, and it won’t be acceptable.
“It’s as simple as that. I’ll see them in the morning. I’ll see you at nine o’clock in the morning because what I won’t accept is lack of desire, accountability, resilience, and not running hard. The basics of the game not being adhered to. We lost so many duels out there; they ran through us. We were miles off it, so if they don’t want to work today, they work tomorrow.
“Until I get the response that I need, there have been times in my career that I’ve had to do this, then that’s the way it will be. We talk formations, we can talk personnel, we can talk all about those, but if you’re not doing the basics of the game right, working hard, running hard, and they’ve ruined my fans’ weekend, so I’m going to ruin theirs. I’ll see them in the morning.
“I’ve got nothing else to say, to be honest. We all owe them an apology, an apology to the fans. I’d like to think they know what I’m about. So, it has to be addressed. You know, the one last week can be called a bit of a one-off, two of them, it can’t be. Miles off it, and the worst thing is, I didn’t see it coming.
“Training has been really bright, bubbly, really good, intense week. But you’ve got to produce on a Saturday. If you don’t want to produce on a Saturday, when we’re getting the backing, we’re getting the crowd’s support, and if you don’t want to do that, fine, see you Sunday morning until you do. And we’ve got to learn. We’ve got to learn from that.”
You mentioned it there, but is that the main thing, the main things, that were missing in the last two games?
“They ran through us. We talk about decision making with the ball, we can talk about this, that, formations, this, that, but the fact of the matter is, you’ve got outworked by the opposition. That won’t be acceptable while I'm their manager.
“We’ve got out-worked, out-duelled, everything. The basics of football. If you don’t get the basics of football right, that’s what happens. At this level. It does, it does. It happens at this level. So, we’ve learnt it the hard way, I’m afraid.
“Until I get what I want and how I want it, because that momentum we had previously, past the last three games, has been lost, and we now need to reset it, get ourselves back to where we were, and you do that by working hard. And we’ll be working hard. And making sure that they know, it ain’t acceptable.”
The final one from me, especially for you, it must really hurt because of how much history you have here...
“Listen. The supporters know what this Club means to me. I didn’t come back for an easy ride; I came here to win. Okay. I didn’t come back to expect special treatment. No. Not at all.
“I want to build a winning squad, and that’s miles away from a winning squad at the minute. We need to get back at it. We need to get back on it, very, very quickly. Because a performance like that gets managers sacked. It was that bad. The way I feel about it is that if my team doesn’t represent the values I set, then we're in tomorrow.”
