Rovers are '˜own worst enemy'

Craig Alcock admitted that Doncaster Rovers are not doing themselves any favours after they slipped to a 2-1 defeat at home to Port Vale last night.
It proved to be a frustrating night at home for Rovers as they fell to defeat to Port ValeIt proved to be a frustrating night at home for Rovers as they fell to defeat to Port Vale
It proved to be a frustrating night at home for Rovers as they fell to defeat to Port Vale

For the fifth successive game at the Keepmoat Stadium, Rovers shipped the first goal and ended up chasing the game.

They were caught on the counter attack when AJ Leitch-Smith scored his second of the night midway through the second half – and this time there was to be no recovery despite a fortuitous late consolation from Cedric Evina.

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Alcock could not hide his frustration after a bad night for Rovers and called on his teammates to address their shortcomings before they host Walsall next Tuesday.

“We’re not doing ourselves any favours at the moment, conceding first,” said Alcock.

“We’re giving ourselves a mountain to climb.

“There’s only so many times you can come back. We did it against Gillingham and Crewe but eventually it’s going to catch up on you.

“We’ve just got to make sure against Walsall we don’t do that.”

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He added: “We’re obviously disappointed and it’s even more disappointing not to follow up Saturday’s draw at Fleetwood with a positive result, especially in front of the home fans.

“Collectively we were nowhere near good enough, but we accept that and we can only apologise and move on.

“We need to put it right next week against Walsall.”

Boss Darren Ferguson felt his side did not deserve anything on the night and says they must end their habit of conceding first.

“We were way off tonight,” he said. “We started the game really well actually, we could have gone 1-0 up and then they went up the pitch and scored - another soft goal we conceded.

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“But in all honesty I didn’t think we deserved anything from the game.

“We’ve been behind quite a few times now at home and we spoke about getting about them and laying down a marker.

“But I think the first goal affected us too much and they were well on top.

“We huffed and puffed and it became a frustrating night.

“It will catch up with you when you go behind all the time. You can’t keep coming back in games.”

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Rovers missed the chance to close the gap on sixth place to four points and slipped to 14th in the table in the process.

To add to the club’s growing injury concerns, goalkeeper Thorsten Stuckmann went off at half time with a shoulder problem and will need an X-ray.