the Gas<\/a> goalkeeper, the Northern Ireland international palming a bending shot from Omari Patrick into Jennings’ path.<\/p>\nIn the 79th minute, the Super White Army added a fourth, hitting Clarke’s men on the counter as substitute Josh Davison slid to tap in a cross towards the back post.<\/p>\n
Pirates midfielder Chang managed to pull back a consolation goal with five minutes of normal time to play but it was too little too late for the hosts.<\/p>\n
“I apologise, first and foremost,” said a forlorn Gas head coach after the match.<\/p>\n
“I put a team out there that represents me, and we were so far off it today. Out-battled, out-duelled, out-played in all areas of the pitch and it\u2019s not acceptable and it\u2019ll never be acceptable whilst I\u2019m manager. I think everybody knows me now over a period of time here and I won\u2019t accept performances like that, so we\u2019ll be in in the morning. We\u2019ve got to learn the hard way because once is a one off, last week, twice is not. I\u2019ve seen a team out there getting out-battled, outrun, out-competed and outplayed. And when you do that, the consequences are what they are until we get better. So, otherwise I apologise to my supporters and make sure I try and get a reaction next game.”<\/p>\n
Many saw this as the perfect opportunity to bounce back from the four goal thumping by MK Dons the week prior, against a Tranmere side who sat 19th prior to kick-off and had only won twice in the league all season.<\/p>\n
However, the task proved tough and what was hoped would be a unique four-goal thumping last week became a two-time occurence.<\/p>\n
“Listen, one off last week, but for me, this week the training\u2019s been good, intensity\u2019s been good. The talks, the work we\u2019d done, everything seemed really positive, I just spoke to my staff about that. But if you\u2019re not going to back it up at three o\u2019clock on a Saturday, and let\u2019s be honest, we\u2019ve been given the support, right? You know, the fans have been right behind us like they continue to be behind us but when we give them that performance, it\u2019s going to get negative. If we can\u2019t do the basics of the game right, accept it, accept it.”<\/p>\n
Clarke and co. brought in 14 new faces during the summer transfer window, giving some much-needed refreshment to the squad that suffered relegation from League One last season.<\/p>\n
Some familiar faces entered the fray alongside some brand new names coming to BS7. Some of last season’s group remain as they try and bounce back up into the third tier, but the Rovers boss has made sure no one is exempt from responsibility after his side’s third league defeat in a row.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s one or two that need to, and by the way not just the boys that were here last season, let\u2019s not paper over the cracks, the boys that I\u2019ve signed in the summer [were] nowhere near good enough. So, there\u2019s no point pointing the finger. Everybody has to hold accountability and we\u2019re miles off it. And that\u2019s what happens in football, at levels. If you\u2019re miles off it, if you don\u2019t want to do the basics of the game right, you get punished, and we got punished.”<\/p>\n
A steady figure, Clarke is known to not hide when facing adversity, and his response to his players after Saturday afternoon’s defeat shows his tough approach to his squad after such disappointment.<\/p>\n
“We started rubbish,” Clarke continued.<\/p>\n
“First 30 minutes we were poor. I thought the back end of the first half [was] a little bit better, a little bit better. Second half, I get into them; to be honest with you, I told them at half time they\u2019ll be in Sunday if it didn\u2019t get any better and it got worse. We give a real shocking goal away, the second goal, and then we collapsed. Not enough character, not enough leaders out there. And, like I said, the buck stops with me. You know me, you\u2019ve done plenty of interviews with me, I don\u2019t go hiding, I don\u2019t go shirking, I don\u2019t go in my shell, I stand up and be counted. You know, I\u2019ve got to look at myself and think, these are my players, my systems. I mean, we talk formations, it\u2019s not formations, it was a heart and a desire thing today. It\u2019s an application thing and we\u2019re miles off it.”<\/p>\n
“I won\u2019t accept that they\u2019re running harder than us on our own patch, and a team that\u2019s been out of form as well, that won\u2019t be acceptable. So, you\u2019ve got to learn the hard way so a bit of old-school treatment. I\u2019m not all for this smothering players and arms round them when you put in performances like that. There has to be consequences. The buck stops with me because managers get sacked but, three or four of those performances and managers get sacked, you\u2019re on your merry way [and] players are still here. So, we\u2019ll have to find a different way to make sure performances like that don\u2019t happen again.”<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Bristol Rovers 0-4 MK Dons recap: Late Dons onslaught means back-to-back league losses for Gas<\/a><\/p>\nThe Gas have another full week to recover, and an extra day after the Pirates boss revealed the players would be in on Sunday, before they are back in action away to Crawley Town next week.<\/p>\n
The unbeaten run that Clarke’s men so recently experienced feels like a lifetime ago and, after only three defeats, it shows how quickly the tides can turn in football.<\/p>\n
Rovers now sit in 16th place in the League Two table, with next week’s opponents Crawley second-bottom and eight points behind the Gas. It seems like it could be the perfect chance to bounce back against the Red Devils, but where has that been said before?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Gas head coach held nothing back in his review of his side’s 4-1 home loss to Tranmere…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,2707,748,46615,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-510401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-rovers-fc","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-darrell-clarke","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115397407024252268","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_PPAUK_Bristol_Rovers_v_Harrogate_Town_020825_065-1JPG.jpg\")
Bristol Rovers head coach Darrell Clarke looks on(Image: Geraint Nicholas\/PPAUK)<\/p>\n