Barrow’s winless League run continued at The Dunes Hotel Stadium as the Bluebirds went down 1-0 to Crawley Town.
It’s now seven League games without a win for Barrow, and this against a side who had lost their previous six.
Those stats clearly identified what sort of game it turned out to be – poor, edgy and error-strewn with both sides understandably nervous of making mistakes.
Barrow boss Mark Cooper has done a lot of work on his defence, with gratifying results but at the other end of the field they can’t score anymore.
And after this latest setback Cooper questioned the desire of his players.
“I thought we were rubbish – poor up-front, we didn’t ask them any questions, poor in the middle of the field and poor all over.
“I’ve never questioned the players desire before. I can take a poor performance, getting beat but when there’s not enough desire I can’t defend them.
“Performances from one or two players made up my mind for me and we certainly will have work to do in January,” he said.
The one goal that decided this lacklustre contest came on 56 minutes when James Tilley took advantage of some poor work in mid-field from Barrow and lashed in a good shot from just outside the area.
It was their best chance of the game and was finished crisply, but Cooper wasn’t happy with what happened in the build-up to the goal.
“Two mid-fielders leave it to each other and then one simple pass sends the lad through on goal. Not good enough,” said the manager.
Cooper had made three changes from the side which drew at Carlisle United last week with Luke James, Remeao Hutton and Mike Jones all coming into the side.
The Bluebirds actually went closest to opening the scoring on seven minutes when Joe Grayson’s deep corner almost curled in at the far post only for keeper Glenn Morris to back pedal quickly and claw it away.
Offrande Zanzala was left wondering how he hadn’t opened the scoring from the resultant corner as the ball flashed across the front man’s path on the edge of the six-yard area, but he couldn’t quite apply the finishing touch.
Crawley’s top scorer Kwesi Appiah came close midway through the first half when the ball fell kindly for him 20 yards out, but his shot flew wide.
In the final minute of the half a low ball across the edge of the Town penalty area rolled into the path of Hutton but he went for power and his shot on the run went high over the bar.
Barrow started the second half positively and Patrick Brough got off a low shot which was comfortably held by Morris.
Then a Grayson free kick was met by James Jones near the penalty spot, but his goal-bound header struck a Town defender and was then cleared.
On 56 minutes, Town took the lead through Tilley and afterwards Barrow seemed to drain of any confidence and really toiled to get back into the game.
With two minutes left, a ball into the area was headed awkwardly up in the air by a visiting defender which gave Grayson a sniff of a chance, but he couldn’t quite prod past Morris who gratefully grabbed the loose ball.
