Keith Hill has confessed that Rochdale are struggling to cope with the demands of League One football after Saturday’s 2-0 home defeat to high-flying Wigan Athletic.
Dale went down to Latics goals in each half from Jason Pearce and Michael Jacobs to make it seven without a win in the league.
Hill’s side now sit in 15th place and the Rochdale chief put the bad run down to injuries and loss of form.
“We seem to be catching up all the time with players’ inconsistencies with respect to performances and injuries,” he said.
“There’s a lot of time spent not training and we’ve not got the players that we need up to speed.
“I’m dealing with inconsistencies from match to match and individual performances.
“We tried to put a team together to compete today, and for large parts of it after 20 minutes I thought we did ok, but again, it’s a results driven business.”
In his analysis of the result, Hill was quick to point out Wigan’s superior financial position.
“Financially, they’re the Manchester United of League One,” he said.
“It’s difficult for me because I have got to give players their run.
“I’ve got to give them time on the pitch and I’ve got to give them the opportunity to progress within this league against teams like Wigan.
“I’m not overly disappointed with the performance but the key decisions from players have to improve and they can only improve by playing more football.
“It’s what you do in the important hard areas of the pitch, which is both penalty areas, and I don’t think we penetrated their penalty area enough.
“We had some nice possession but not an awful lot of penetration, whereas their first goal was a very sloppy goal.”
Dale will be hoping to halt their winless run and halt their slide down the table when they travel to Doncaster Rovers next Saturday.
Image courtesy of Rochdale AFC, via Youtube, with thanks
