I'm very, very sorry

I LET the lads down with my team selection, I must hold my hands up and say that. It was a case of trying to put square pegs into round holes.

Basically we wanted to be hard to beat and try and come away with a point. We set our stall out not to get beat but I ended up with egg all over my face and I have to take responsibility for that and I have to take the flack off my players.

The conditions for playing were not good. My back’s sore from just being on the pitch and I’ll have a very sore squad of players after it. We didn’t adapt to the pitch at all and Crusaders did because they’ve been on it now for the past couple of months.

We were exposed all over the place. We were very poor on the night. First of all it was a horrendous mistake by Barry Johnston, passing the ball straight to Donnelly. The second goal shouldn’t have happened either as there were enough players in there to prevent Arthurs getting a second stab at it.

Did we have a shot on target all night? Maybe one or two. Willo’s header was probably the best chance but it was too little too late. We needed to get a goal just after half-time to have any chance but we didn’t look like scoring and it’s back to the drawing board again.

We have had a few decent performances in our recent games, even against Portadown I thought we gave a good account of ourselves but on Monday night we were back to rubbish.

The changing room wasn’t a nice place to be after the game. Management and everyone have to look at themselves. I sent a team out there who maybe weren’t too sure or happy with what they were doing so I have to look at that as well.

We’re all in it together. I’m not going to come down hard on my players. They know they underachieved and I know I underachieved. I’m not going to lambaste my players when I haven’t done my job properly either. I’m not in a position to do that. It’s easy to say I should have done this or that but I didn’t and that’s it.

I’m very, very sorry for our fans and I apologise to them for our performance. That’s Glenavon, it’s a rollercoaster.