MANAGER'S VERDICT: ‘I'm the first to hold my hand up’ - Declan Devine reacts to ‘unbelievable’ shock Glentoran defeat at bottom Glenavon
Glentoran’s second defeat of the Premiership season arrived in a shock reverse on the road to bottom side Glenavon by 3-1.
Davy McDaid scored two goals for the hosts before Paul McGovern made it 3-0 on the way to only a second league victory of the campaign for Glenavon as Ryan Cooney’s superb strike offered Glentoran little consolation.
Here’s the verdict of Glentoran manager Declan Devine:
OVERALL PERFORMANCE...
"I changed shape today, so I'm the first person that has to take responsibility...I wanted to get two centre-forwards up the pitch but we didn't have enough in the wide areas in terms of support to those two and service.
"So my first decision didn't work out and I take full responsibility for it.
“Second of all, you can't give away the two goals prior to half-time in the manner that we did...two defensive lapses from us, two lapses of concentration.
"I don't think it was a lack of effort...we switched off a few occasions and it was just crazy stuff.
“The three boys who came off (at half-time in a tactical switch) didn't do anything wrong as such, we just needed to go back to a different formation, we needed to go and get more quality high up the pitch.
"I didn't think we had enough support for Pat (Hoban) and JJ (Jordan Jenkins) in the first half, so that was the reason.
"I was frustrated at half-time with our real quality on the ball.
"I could have done that (earlier), it was a consideration.
"I just felt a freshness and an energiser of bringing three quality players on, let's be honest (in) Jordan Stewart, David Fisher and Joe Thomson.
"That’s the purpose of the squad, that's why we wanted to make changes but, ultimately, the formation was something that I will look at and make sure that I'm the first to hold my hand up.
"But, at the same time, we can't miss the opportunities we've missed...it's unbelievable how many we've missed from a yard or two.
"And that has cost us."
BIG MOMENTS…
"There's big calls in the game.
"There's a stonewall penalty on Liam Burt that's not given and Glenavon go up the pitch and get a penalty, which is a penalty also.
"There's two offside goals we score, one of them is 100 per cent offside.
"The Marcus Kane one is definitely onside whenever I see it, I think it’s an own goal but Marcus is nowhere near offside.
"We miss a chance from at least a yard out by Ryan Cooney and then, in the second half, we missed two chances from two yards out.
"A lot of things have gone wrong for us today but, ultimately, we were short, we didn't play anywhere near the levels.
"Big decisions didn't go our away, I've got a decision wrong in my formation and I think players have to understand both boxes we must be far better.”
DISAPPOINTMENT IN DEFEAT...
"I can't fault the players, the players have been absolutely sensational and they've shown amazing character when behind in games to drag us back over across the line.
"But eventually we've got to be putting teams to bed, when we're on top in games we've got to be more ruthless in both boxes.
"We've not kept a clean sheet now since Ballymena at home (October 18) - which is frustrating - and we've given away a few poor goals over recent weeks.
"We've got to be scoring more goals when the chances are there, it's got to be more ruthless in both boxes.
"If you get the second goal I'm confident we can go on and try and win the game, even at half-time I felt that we could get something out of the game.
"But not when you miss opportunities like that and when I look back at the three goals, they’ve been really, really poor."