Joey Barton took little solace from the "loads of good things" Bristol Rovers did in a 2-1 defeat at Shrewsbury Town that "encapsulated the season" for the Gas.
Rovers conceded soft goals at the start of each half to former Gas captain Luke Leahy and Crystal Palace loanee Rob Street, undermining the long stretches of control and pressure that Barton's side produced.
Josh Coburn's poacher's goal 20 minutes from time set up a dramatic conclusion at the New Meadow, but gilt-edged chances were spurned in the closing stages as Shrewsbury hung on for three points in the penultimate game of the campaign.
Rovers dominated possession and created chances throughout the evening, but Barton believes a familiar combination of profligacy and porous defending combined to see them lose a game in which they ought to have secured at least a point.
And it was yet another example of Rovers succumbing to one of League One's more physical and pragmatic teams; something the manager is intent on stamping out going into next season.
"We’ve lost the game, so I don’t want to be too negative towards Shrewsbury, but we’ve got to defend our goal better in the first five minutes," Barton said. "At the first corner, we’re a goal down and it gives them something to hang onto.
"From our perspective, stats are only a pointer to a performance, the main one being we lost 2-1, so we get no points and that’s the most important stat.
"When we got our more technical players onto the pitch, I thought we took control and we were certainly in the ascendancy towards the back end of the game, but you can’t give a side who want to sit back in a low block the opportunity to get a goal ahead.
"We compounded that by giving them an early goal in the second period and by then you’ve got a mountain to climb.
"There were loads of good things there, but that probably encapsulates the season."
Rovers remain 15th in League One ahead of Saturday's final game of the campaign against Bolton Wanderers at the Mem, safe by a distance but a significant way short the play-off mix Barton wants to be part of next term. Steve Cotterill's Shrewsbury rose to 12th.
With Rovers 2-0 down with 30 minutes to play, Barton shuffled the pack and made all five of his substitutions at once. It yielded a response and he said it was always his plan to utilise Rovers' more technical players late in the game, although the need for changes was exacerbated by the state of the game.
"We’ve had a long slog of games and we’ve not stopped since the Easter weekend and the lads’ bodies are working hard," Barton said. "They kept pushing to the end and we’ve got to utilise the squad.
"The last thing we want to do is lose a game so those changes were necessary. I felt we got better after that, but also there is an element of the amount of load people have had and the fact we are playing a very physical side.
"We had to stand up to the physicality and part of the strategy was to open up late in the game, but we certainly didn’t envisage being two goals down to a team like Shrewsbury."
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