RUFC - Moore apologises to travelling fans

Rotherham United Manager, Ronnie Moore has apologised to the fans who made the trip down to Southend this afternoon, saying, 'It wasn't good enough and I can only apologise to the people who came all the way down here. There's no excuse today - lacklustre, not enough effort and sometimes if you could stop their wages you'd do it.'

Speaking to Radio Sheffield after the one-nil defeat to Southend, Moore said, 'I thought that was the worst we've been all season and some of the effort from some of the players today was unacceptable. We're not going to have a performance like that again this season, We've got good players and hard working players in that side but if you don't play to the best of your ability you lose like we did today.

'We've not passed it and we've played too many long balls and when we did have one or two little half chances we've not taken them. We've launched too many long balls and they know about it, they've had their ears rapped

'Southend were a battling team, which is really all they were, The goal we conceded was absolutely unbelievable. It's come of his ear or his shoulder and looped in of the post.'

Asked if he thought the team were having some bad luck recently, Moore said, 'No. We're having some bad defending. Tom (Newey) slipped when the balls come in, we've got two men in there to deal with the cross and Sturocks got a touch on it. It's rank bad defending. They've had too many crosses that have come into our box on both sides and, at this present time, both full-backs are having a dodgy time. We're in a position at the moment where we haven't really got a right back but Mullins and Newey are better players than they've been showing recently and we've got to get back to working our socks off and play football.

'We've made it difficult for ourselves because I think we are a miles better side than them but we've lost the game because we went into the way they played and they're better at it than we are. I'm not having it and there will be one or two changes on Tuesday, that's for sure.'

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