This hurts so much - Dickov

RAGING at half-time to the extent his voice could be heard near the players’ tunnel, Athletic manager Paul Dickov denounced the team effort against Swindon as simply not good enough.

“What I saw here, especially in the first half, was a lack of pride in individual performance, a lack of desire and a lack of professionalism.

“What is the point of putting training sessions on when you do what you want? There was too much of that. The players know exactly how I feel. It was unacceptable, especially in the first half.

Two first-half goals by Raffaele De Vita brought Athletic crashing back down to earth with a bump, after a sequence which had brought four victories from five games.

Dickov felt his wide midfielders Cristian Montano and Lee Croft didn’t help their full-backs enough — and ranked the performance as worse than those that brought 6-0 and 5-0 losses to Boundary Park two seasons ago.