Joey Barton sent a stern warning to his Bristol Rovers players after a poor performance saw them knocked out of the FA Cup in the second round by non-league Boreham Wood at the Mem on Sunday.
Will Evans and David Stephens scored before the half-hour mark to put the National League side in a commanding position and they managed the game expertly to book their place in Monday's third-round draw. Rovers, meanwhile, were below par across the park and Barton made clear his dissatisfaction in his post-match press conference.
He admitted the cup was not his priority, but he was "gutted" to not reward supporters with a run to the third round and the possibility of a glamour tie in the next round. Barton warned his players he will not tolerate such a poor performance in the future.
"They’ve set the bar now," he said. "The bar has been set with what we’re looking for and that’s not just from me, it’s the fanbase.
"We’ve set our standards and today we were clearly below our standard of performance. For me, certainly in the past 12 months, the standard of performance has been relatively high, but a rude awakening for us and if there is anybody in that dressing room that feels that might be accepted, you know how effective and ruthless and efficient we are.
"Their f****** feet won’t hit the ground if they think that’s the level of performance.
"The FA Cup is great and we want to have a good cup run and visit some grounds. I don’t really give a s*** about it because I’ve played in all these places.
"Are we going to win the FA Cup? Absolutely not. Could we take the fans on a journey and the team on a journey? Yeah, so I’m disappointed in that regard because it’s an exciting competition, but the bread and butter for us is establishing ourselves as a League One club, which we’re making a good fist of.
"I don’t get to watch the draw on Monday with any anticipation. I get to prepare for Bolton and the key is that we reach our level of performance and anybody who doesn’t consistently do that, whether you’ve been the best player for us last year or we’ve paid money for you this year, if you don’t get to it, you won’t hang around here.
"I don’t like losers, I don’t like spending time with losers. Of the group that lost for us in the first period when I took over, 40 of them have exited the building, staff included. You get a short time on this planet. I don’t like spending time with people who don’t care about what they do and don’t apply themselves correctly in every single moment of their life.
"On the whole, our lads are superb. Today, we were miles short, and that is everybody involved, miles short, and they know the reality of it. They know we don’t mess about and if they don’t reach the level of performance that we expect, their time here will be very short."
It was only Rovers' second defeat in their past 13 games in all competitions, making the result all the more surprising and Barton said he saw no signs of such a flat performance ahead of the game.
Barton praised Luke Garrard's side for the way they managed the game and maximised their opportunities, with both goals coming from set plays, but the Rovers boss believes the Gas were undone by "crazy moments".
He said."There are lots of moments in that game where we have done some crazy moments. The first goal has come from us having relatively comfortable possession and one of our players plays a pass that I’m still scratching my head at, there are five of their players and none of ours in the vicinity and we get countered off it and ultimately we go behind.
"We were not good enough, we have not scored against them at home, I don't think their keeper made any good saves. We are playing a non-league side, with the greatest respect for them. They are in the Conference and I think some of our boys need to have a long, hard look at themselves as that isn’t the standard of this football club, this isn’t the standard going forward and if they think that is they won’t be here if they continue in that way."
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