PAUL Cox blamed a defeatist mind-set among his Barrow AFC players as they fell to a 2-0 loss at Tranmere Rovers.

The Bluebirds failed to build on their opening-day National League victory against Aldershot, as goals from former AFC player Andy Cook and James Norwood maintained Tranmere’s 100 per cent record.

Barrow rarely threatened the home side’s goal and did not have a single significant shot on target over the 90 minutes.

Cox was honest in his assessment of a below-par AFC display, believing there still need to be major improvements if the side are to challenge for honours this term.

“We huffed, we puffed, but I don’t think we deserved anything really out of the game,” said the Barrow boss.

“I learnt a lot about my squad, I learnt a lot about the players, I learnt a lot about the mind-set.

“Once again, after Saturday, there were a lot of people getting carried away. I made the statement that there is a hell of a lot for us to do, and I still maintain that.

“It’s a learning curve for this group of players. There are no panic stations, but we need to improve in certain areas if we are going to be competitive this season in this league.”

He added: “I thought they were better than us tonight. I don’t usually say that about my teams and I am annoyed that we didn’t give it more of a real good go.

“We went with an offensive system, the 4-4-2, but our body language tonight was second-best. There are a lot of things I have had in my mind that I know need improving, but I would rather learn that now, two games in, with three points from those two game, than wait and be patient and still have the same mistakes in 10 or 15 games.

“You can never come to a place like this and start a football game with your mind-set defeatist, your mind-set feeling as though you are inferior. That’s what’s annoyed me about this group tonight – I felt our performance was that of a team that wanted to come here and defend. If that was the case, I might as well have played a 4-5-1 and we would have done it properly.

“I don’t think we ever looked as if we were going to affect the game going forward like we have done in pre-season. We didn’t have any impetus, we didn’t have an explosiveness about our play today.

“It could be down to a number of different things. I talk about squad size again. Once again, we had to patch up. Danny Livesey has had to come off and that leaves us a little bit disjointed. People are catching up on fitness, but all of these would be me making basic excuses and I’m not one for excuses – I’m one for doing what’s right and putting it right as quick as possible, so the product is a winning one, consistently.”

Barrow will have to pick themselves up quickly after the loss, which saw captain Danny Livesey leave the field with a knee injury which could rule him out of Saturday’s trip to Torquay United.

Cox hopes his squad will have learnt lessons from the Tranmere loss, and added: “After you lose a game, you can’t paper over cracks, and there are a few cracks in there. This is not panicking, this is not a post-match interview which is a rant and a rave, it’s something I have been talking about for a few weeks now.

“I’ll take it on the chin tonight. I don’t think we played particularly well, but then I don’t think we played particularly well on Saturday. We’ve got three points from two games, which is a positive, and we will learn from tonight. If we don’t learn as a football club from tonight and if we can’t look at what is needed to be competitive in this league from the game tonight, that’s when the worries start for me.”