Manager Darrell Clarke apologised to the 949 travelling Port Vale supporters after the side were soundly beaten on Saturday afternoon.
The Valiants were defeated 4-0 in a performance that Clarke labelled as “soft.”
I feel sorry for the tremendous support we had here today, I thank them for their support, and apologise for the performance…
Clarke told the media: “It was a very soft away performance; our away form has been pretty good and we have seven points out of our last three away league games, but today we were soft, we didn’t really get ourselves going, conceded a really early goal to get their confidence up and were then chasing the game for the majority of it. We had good chances, didn’t take them, but they were very clinical.
“One or two decisions went against us today but that doesn’t mean we have to be soft in our approach and too many of my players today weren’t at it and we have to respond. For the second goal it is a foul on Will Forrester, the third goal is handball when he brings it down with his hand, but I look at the general performance and it was nowhere near the standard we set ourselves.
“It gives everybody a kick up the backside and reminds us that we still have a long way to go to be an established League One team, because on that performance we were nowhere near it,” he added.
“I feel sorry for the tremendous support we had here today, I thank them for their support, and apologise for the performance.
“As a group, we have to show them how we’ll respond and I am confident the group will do that. We have to make sure we have a really hard, physical week on the training pitch to make sure we respond on Saturday.”
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