Cook hurt by lack of desire

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Sligo Rovers' manager Paul Cook is never anything but honest in the assessment of his side's performances and last night was no exception. Many would have pointed to the missed chances, the bit of luck that deserted them, the positives to take from the game, or deflected criticism from a group of players experiencing their first European action, but that is not the Scouser's way. The pain of defeat was clear for all to see and he quickly expressed his disgust at his side's efforts.

"I don’t think we were good enough", Cook stated afterwards. "I don’t think we showed enough passion, enough life, I thought the game passed us by. I thought the occasion was far too much for some of our players. We were second to everything, no reaction, no desire. We just let them gain confidence as the game went on, and in the end they’ve got some decent players, they moved the ball well and I thought we got what we deserved. People will say you were unlucky. That unlucky one doesn’t wash with me.

"Don’t get me wrong, we are still in this game," Cook continued. "We’ll have a right go at them over there, but it’s so disappointing at what we’ve done tonight.

"We said we’ll play at a high tempo, we’ll close everything down. We done everything wrong, everything against what we set out to do. And that’s the disappointing thing. If we come out tonight and do our best and get beat, I’ll hold my hands up, I don’t have a problem. We never done our best tonight. We made every bad decision."

The sense of disappointment was evident, as Cook revealed that he thought the occasion, Sligo's first foray into Europe in 13 years, had been more than some of his squad could cope with.

"We put our players under pressure to go out there and enjoy themselves and we froze, whether people like it or not. Some of the players won’t like it, but they froze tonight. That’s the disappointing thing, cos we got a great crowd in, there was a lovely atmosphere in the ground. The players created that atmosphere; they done great to get us here."

"What I like to do, I like to build teams that are competitive and have a go, and tonight we were just short. I sound like I’m a bit against our players; I am very pro our players and I love them. Tonight they just let me down, they let the fans down, they let themselves down, but by the time tomorrow comes, believe me, we’ll all be back on the same ship rowing the same way."

Gavin Peers will return to action in the return leg and will be a big addition to the team, and Cook admitted that, while no signings have yet been made, money is available for new faces to be aquired and business will be done in the transfer window.

"We’re desperately trying to improve the squad and bring players in. We need, to be fair to the lads, they need help. It needs freshening up. We’re in a lucky position that we’ve got a bit to spend, due to being involved in things like this. You’ve got to spend it wisely, haven’t you."

Having expressed his over-riding emotions, Cook was also defiant that the tie was far from over and that the travelling band of supporters would get their money's worth in the second leg. The attitude heading over to Albania?

"Dead positive, we’ll go over there and we’ll try and win. We’ll try our best to win. We’re taking support over there, and I’ll tell you what, we will make sure the lads who are travelling have something to shout about because we’re not going over there to get beat, that’s for sure."

The hurt rose to the surface again, though, as Cook had a swipe at what he feels is a general sense of detachment that is growing in football these days.

"I think it’s a bad trait with football now; I don’t think people care enough. I genuinely think that people sometimes just want to pick money up and it doesn’t hurt them. That’s hurting me; I’m hurting at the minute. I’m hurting at the fact that I think we should beat them here tonight. Yet we’ve now been beat 2-1 and we go there with a mountain to climb."