SLIGO ROVERS MANAGER Gerard Lyttle said his whole squad and backroom team should be ‘ashamed of ourselves’ after the club slumped to an abject defeat to Bray Wanderers yesterday.
Bottom of the table Bray have not trained collectively in a number of weeks after the players were told the club’s resources had dried up and they would not be paid — but the hosts produced a spirited display to earn a crucial 2-1 win at the Carlisle Grounds.
The result leaves Sligo just two points clear of Limerick in ninth place, and caused many of the travelling supporters to vent their frustration at the final whistle, leading to an altercation between fans and members of the Bit O’Red coaching team.
Speaking afterwards, Lyttle said he ‘was sick of saying these things, to be honest’ as he offered a forthright appraisal of his team’s pitiable performance.
“We’d got ourselves into a great position before the [mid-season] break,” he said. We thought things are looking up, we’ve got the team were we want them to be.
“We lost last week against Waterford and then we came here against Bray.
“Everybody was thinking it was going to be a banker and an easy three points. I was quite worried about the game beforehand. It was a potential banana skin.
“It was all about attitude, and if the attitude wasn’t right we knew it was going to be a tough day. Obviously the attitude wasn’t right, for whatever reason.
“We knew the pitch was going to be brutal, we knew players weren’t getting paid and weren’t training. At the end of the day we’ve seen [Bray] players out there that probably wanted to win the game a wee bit more than us. That’s the worrying thing and the frustrating thing for me.”
He added: “We should all be ashamed of ourselves, myself included. I pick a team, players go out and should put a performance in and they haven’t done it. We’ve cheated our fans with that. It’s unacceptable and something we’ll be looking at.
“The only people who can fix this is ourselves.”
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