Chris Agutter was left frustrated after a dramatic late collapse saw his side beaten 3–2 by Yeovil Town.
Goals either side of the break from Hayden Muller and Kai Jennings put the U’s in the ascendancy heading into stoppage time, but Sutton would end up falling to a narrow loss after injury time strikes from James Daly and Brett McGavin restored the Glovers’ advantage, who had initially led through a first half goal from Daly.
The Head Coach felt a shift in mentality during the final 20 minutes ultimately cost his side, with Agutter clear about where he felt the game turned.
“The last 20 minutes is exactly why we shouldn’t play direct,” he said. “When we were 2–1 up, we were better. It was a scrappy game in general with moments of quality. I don’t think much separated the two teams. I think the game was probably a reflection of how close the two teams were to each other in the league table.”
“That’s why we don’t [play direct], because we’re not built for it. It doesn’t suit us, and if we do that from a position of control in the pitch, I don’t think it gets the best out of the players.”
“For whatever reason, we’ve done that in the last 20 minutes – gone into self-preservation mode, survival mode, and deservedly get beat because of that shift in mentality.”
“We went from certainly not our best, but expansive, trying to play forwards, trying to be aggressive. We’ve got ourselves into a winning position and absolutely chucked it away.”
Having led for the bulk of the second half, he was particularly disappointed with his team’s defensive approach as Yeovil pushed for an equaliser.
“If you’re not going to have the balls and the character and the courage to take the ball and see the game out and try and make it three, try and make it four, then you better make sure you defend the box properly. And we didn’t do that.”
“You could drive a Titanic between the lads at the back post and they deserve to get an equaliser. Then again, the momentum’s with them. Complete lack of experience, nous again, we’ve just got into our shell and deservedly lost the game.”
“They’ve got to swallow it, take it on the chin and deal with it. They’ve got to learn. I don’t deserve to be lifted after that myself, I’ve included the staff as well. We need to do better.”
Despite this, he insisted the focus must quickly shift to the challenges ahead, starting with a tough trip to FC Halifax Town, and will be followed by another quick turnaround with another long journey to Hartlepool United on Tuesday night.
“We’ve got to move on from it incredibly quickly. We haven’t got a huge amount of time, we’ve got a tough run of fixtures.”
“But moving on from it – I want that to sit with everyone. It’s going to be a horrible journey home and it deserves to be because in the last 20 minutes we need to use that as another reference point. Remember Yeovil. Remember when we went into ourselves. Remember when we stopped stringing at least two passes together.”
“We need to shift the mentality. That mentality, that was the mentality I walked into, winds me up. That 20 minutes at the end – that was the mentality. I’m so frustrated.”
“We’re going to have to go to Halifax, an even tougher game, and we’re going to have to go there and learn from tonight and try and reproduce the same level of performance that we did down at our place. That’ll give us a hell of a chance to win the game.”
