Conor Thomas admitted that Town were simply not good enough during their Emirates FA Cup First Round Replay defeat at the hands of Eastleigh at SN1 last night.
Efforts from Jai Reason, Andy Drury and Mikael Mandron handed the visitors victory with Nathan Delfouneso grabbing a late consolation for the Reds, and Thomas was brutally honest when assessing the performance.
“We just weren’t good enough as a group from start to finish,” he said.
“They came with a game plan, they were direct and we didn’t deal with it. We got bullied and it just wasn’t good enough.
“We’ve only won when we’ve kept a clean sheet so when we do go a goal behind we need to be more mentally resolute to come back and not fold under pressure.
“It was clear for everyone to see last night that when we did go a goal down we struggled and the second goal killed us.
“We look at ourselves and their first two goals were preventable and it wasn’t fair on Lawrence Vigouroux. Even though they were two good finishes, it shouldn’t get to that situation anyway so it wasn’t good enough from our part in the first place.
“When they did get the second goal they had something to hang on to and you saw in the second-half that they sat very deep and it was difficult to break them down, but you can’t give them a 2-0 head-start and something to hang on to.
“We’ve got quite a young squad and we just need to work on it. We can’t get too high when we win and we can’t get too low when we lose.
“Saturday was such an accomplished performance and last night was the complete opposite and that has happened a few times this season, which isn’t acceptable.
“We’ve just got to work as a group and focus on what got us those wins and focus on the positives.
“We can’t have such a dramatic drop in performance three days after a win and it has happened a few times this season, so it is something we’ve got to look at.”
