Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale feels his side have lost their rhythm as they fell to their third defeat in four games against Accrington Stanley on Saturday.
An injury-time goal from Tom Aldred won the match for the Lancashire club against a City side who had taken the lead into the half-time break, but struggled to perform after the interval.
They were missing Matt Grimes, following his move to Premier League Swansea City on Friday, and David Noble form the centre of their midfield. That seemed to have influence on the second half as City struggled to keep hold the ball and get possession in the opponent's half.
Tisdale gave credit to Accrington for how they turned the match around, but admitted his side weren't at their best.
"It was a disappointing result and I think Accrington probably deserved it the way they played," he said. "They certainly deserved a draw, so well played them and I think we could have played a bit better. It is a long season – we are having a little bit of a sticky patch – and we need to get our rhythm back. You have to give them credit. You have to look to how they responded and it took us too long to get pace with it."
City had been the better side in the first-half with Ryan Harley crossing for Tom Nichols to head home his ninth goal of the season.
In fact it wasn't until the hour mark, when Harley and Clinton Morrison were replaced by David Wheeler and Scot Bennett that the game started to swing Accrington's way. They scored a well-taken goal through Seamus McCartan to draw level after 67 minutes.
However, in the final 15 minutes it was City who were pushing for the winner, with Nichols having an effort cleared off the line just before Stanley scored the decisive goal.
Tisdale made no apologies for going for the win though and added that bringing off Harley, after 60 minutes, was an enforced change.
Tisdale said: "Ryan (Harley) wasn't feeling particularly great. He has been ill this week, so he had to come off, which was unfortunate as it meant I had to change the midfield. That was sort of imposed on us a bit, which was a shame.
"It is difficult to analyse without watching it frame-by-frame, but we had the best of the first half and I was pleased with our performance although I thought there were things we could have done a little bit better.
"We didn't respond to their pick up in performance though and we had to ride that and come back into the game, which we did.
"At 1-1 we changed it with 15 minutes to go and picked up or play again, but it was a disappointing way to lose it at the end. I tried to get the win.
"I changed it the last five minutes to try and get a winner. Ok, we lost a point, but that has to be our intent in home games, when it is 1-1, to go for the win.
"We have done that numerous times, we have gone for something, and today it didn't work. It feels really tough when it happens to you, but we will get our fair share and I'm sure, if we keep playing the way that we do, we will get our rhythm back."
