Joey Barton admitted Bristol Rovers "have to be pleased with a point" as they came from behind twice to draw 2-2 with Morecambe in League One on Saturday.
Rovers created several good chances, particularly in the first half, but they fell behind to a screamer from Brighton & Hove Albion loanee Jensen Weir in the 12th minute. The Gas hit back just shy of the half hour mark with Ryan Loft tucking away Aaron Collins' cross, but it proved to be a frustrating afternoon for Barton's side, who hit the woodwork twice and failed to capitalise on their dominance of the territory.
Kieran Phillips restored Morecambe's lead shortly after the break, with Rovers stung on the counter and although the pressure remained on the visitors, the chances started to dry up for the Gas until debutant Bobby Thomas reacted fastest to smash home a loose ball with 10 minutes to play.
Rovers dropped one place to 16th in the League One table, with eight points from seven games. Morecambe are still waiting for their first win but climbed one place to 22nd.
"I have to be pleased with a point," Barton said. "We’ve been behind twice and Morecambe aren’t really a side you want to go behind against due to the way they set up.
"I don’t think they were as bad as Shrewsbury last week for stinking the game out, but they had a clear strategy to eat the clock and take the time off the board. I spoke about it this week and it is frustrating. You want to have a game of footy, let people see it and get on with it and get cracking.
"But from our perspective, we gave away what I feel are two sloppy goals. One on transition, which shouldn’t happen and one from a short corner where we took a hell of a lot of time to get to it. We’ve got to improve in that regard.
"I felt we should have had a penalty for the challenge on Aaron Collins. It’s a straightforward foul. The keeper doesn’t get the ball, Aaron knocks it and I think the ref has got to give a penalty but doesn’t give it.
"We hit the inside of the post and it comes out and Azza had a great chance on the stroke of half time. I think we’ve created enough chances to certainly win the game but we never found ourselves in the ascendancy and we have to see it as a point gained because we were never in a position to win the game."
Barton believes the game would have been drastically different had Rovers been the team to hit the back of the net first and he admitted it is "disappointing" not to take three points off winless Morecambe.
But the manager says the club has to adjust to the reality of being in League One, compared to the force they were last season in the fourth tier.
"The disappointing thing for us is we never got in the lead in the game," he said. "We had the lion’s share of the territory but we were huffing and puffing and working some set plays and we got loose from them with a couple of Bobby Thomas headers across the goal and we didn’t manage to put the ball in the back of the net and get ourselves in the lead.
"If we took the lead today, I felt we would have won the game relatively comfortably from there, bit twice we gave ourselves a bit of a task to get back in it. Credit to the lads, they pulled themselves off the canvas.
"It is disappointing not to beat Morecambe at home, but another point gained. They are somebody who will be in the bottom part of the table.
"We have to be better than four teams this year. I know the Gasheads don’t want to hear that and we want to push as high as we can in the table and the reality for us is establishing ourselves as a League One side and possibly building out from that.
"But we mustn’t get carried away and think we can run before we can walk."
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