Darrell Clarke insists his Barnsley side were “nowhere near good enough” despite a 2-1 win at Lincoln.
Sam Cosgrove and Marc Roberts were on target for the Tykes before Ben House replied and the Imps Lincoln missed several chances to get something from the game.
Clarke said: “Nowhere near good enough. I don’t paper over the cracks, the performance was poor. We were sloppy.
“We had one or two good moments and I am pleased to win so I don’t want to be too negative, but we have to be better. Our decision making, transition of the ball was sloppy.
“We went 2-0 up with a well worked set piece, that we do a lot of work on, then we are sloppy and concede a goal which puts us under pressure.
“We have to learn. The good news is the group understand. I believe I am managing a good honest group who understand that’s not the standards we set.
“The last two games were better than that. We were very loose and went backwards too much. Our goalkeeper probably was a little bit overworked.
“The fans were 10 out of 10. We were probably three out of 10.
“I felt very uncomfortable for a lot of it but when I have a glass of red I will enjoy the first league win.”
Lincoln’s Michael Skubala felt his side was unfortunate not to get anything from the game.
He said: “It’s a tough scoreline. All in all when we look back we will say we played well.
“We started the game brightly. We made a mistake for the first goal, and we weren’t tight enough and it’s come from switching off which is disappointing.
“The second half of the first half we were on top then we conceded a soft goal.
“We got back in game. I am not sure I should say this but I don’t think you should punch people in the head and get away with it (an accident involving Jon Russell).
“I think we could have had penalty (for a tackle by Marc Roberts on Tendai Darikwa).
“We had eight chances and scored one and we need to shore things up at the back.”
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