Joey Barton admitted Bristol Rovers' 0-0 draw with promoted Forest Green Rovers felt like a defeat for his players as their chances of automatic promotion took a dent on Saturday.
Forest Green only needed a point to clinch their place in League One next season and, after a thrilling end-to-end contest for 90 minutes, Rob Edwards' side soaked up plenty of pressure in the closing stages as the Gas came close to a winner.
Elliot Anderson and Luke Thomas twice forced excellent saves from Luke McGee as FGR got the result they needed for promotion. For the Gas, they are fifth, two points adrift of Northampton Town in the table with two games to play.
With Port Vale slipping up, victory for the Gas could have positioned them perfectly to sneak into the top three, but they remain reliant on other results going their way or they will have to run the gauntlet of the play-offs.
Barton believes there were lessons to be learned as the Gas endured a frustrating afternoon, albeit their season has plenty of life in it yet.
"It feels like we’ve lost because we knew we had to win and I think that really affected our performance," Barton said. "Some of our big players were just guilty of rushing things. We started superbly and Antony Evans has a big chance and then a couple of things happened where we didn’t follow our training and strategy we worked on.
"It allowed Forest Green, and they’re a good side, to get some momentum back in the game and they had a series of corners and attacking moments because we didn’t do what we work on doing. We were trying to force the goal and the chance, and you’ve got to relax and flow. We’re a young team in its first cycle, having to beat the top team in the division to keep momentum.
"We’ll look back on this as a learning opportunity for our group and our team, but again it is another clean sheet and another point picked up because we’re still not guaranteed to be in the play-offs yet, we need more points.
"Yeah, we want to get automatics and we’re looking at other team’s results, but we must be mindful of how tight the division is and not slipping out and missing out on a chance to further extend a season and possibly a chance to go up via the play-offs."
Forest Green have led the league almost from start to finish and Barton was full of praise for opposite number Edwards at full time. The Gas also took encouragement from his side pushing Forest Green close to the limit in a game where both sides had a maximum motivation.
"Congratulations to Forest Green for getting promoted," Barton said. "They have sat at the table all season to be shot at. They’ve had a few nervy moments in recent weeks and months but they’ve managed to get the job done.
"Hopefully, we can join them in League One next season at some point. Rob’s first season as a senior manager and he deserves enormous credit.
"When we think about them as a football club, they’ve obviously built through the lower leagues with Dale Vince’s investment and they’ve hit the bar a few times. I remember watching them get beat by Newport in the play-offs last year. I remember the year before they got close and they never got there.
"They’ve had big leads and we have to take some inspiration from that. We’re in the first cycle of our team. This is my first team at Bristol Rovers and we haven’t even completed the first season.
"We had a huge turnaround over personnel to overcome in the midst of the relegation and we’ve shown today we can go toe-to-toe with the team that is best in the division based on the league table."
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