'Pathetic' and 'ridiculous'- Notts County boss criticises side after defeat to Chesterfield
Notts County manager Martin Paterson said his team did not do the basics well enough in the 2-0 defeat against Chesterfield.
The Spireites ran out deserved winners on Boxing Day thanks to second-half goals from Lee Bonis and Liam Mandeville in front of a crowd of more than 10,000 at the SMH Group Stadium.
The Magpies went into the clash above the Blues in the table and in good form but they were second best in Derbyshire. Although it was a game of few clear chances, Town were clearly the better side and bagged all three points when Bonis pounced for his ninth goal in 11 games and then Mandeville’s corner was spilled into his own net by Kelle Roos.
He said: “Really simply, if you don’t run hard, more so than your opponents, if you don’t tackle in the middle of the football field and when you are high up pressing, if you don’t take the ball off them, and then when you do have it you don’t connect passes, away at Chesterfield in this league it is going to be a tough game for you.
"In the first-half I wasn’t worried because I don’t think they really had golden opportunities but I was concerned slightly that that didn’t look like us at all. Then in the second-half we tweaked it a little bit, but basically I don’t want to overtalk, it is the basics and the fundamentals that we didn’t do today and that is a rarity in my time here. We have been really good at pressing, running and competing but I thought we came off that in a ridiculous amount today.”
Paterson admitted that his team looked ‘surprised’ at Chesterfield’s intensity despite being warned pre-match. The Spireites overloaded the middle of the pitch and came out on top in the majority of their duels.
He continued: "We did not look like cutting them open and getting that final moment. I think it is about people taking responsibility. I just think they played the game better than us and they looked like they were playing a derby and we looked like we were surprised at the intensity of them.”
On the goals conceded, he added: "For the first one we switched off on the left hand side defensively. The second one is pathetic to concede that goal. I don’t think I need to go through footage of people not running, tackling and people giving the ball away. I thought a few of them came off it at an alarming rate and we can’t accept that.”