Barrow AFC manager Ian Evatt refused to defend his players after they threw away a two-goal lead in their 3-2 defeat against Dover Athletic at Holker Street.

Evatt believes what he saw in the final 20 minutes of the match, during which the Whites turned the game on its head, has happened too often this season.

The manner of the Bluebirds’ collapse was indeed disturbing, as it came completely out of the blue, but it was another home game that they allowed to slip through their fingers.

The home crowd were left stunned, and angered, by the conclusion of the match, with AFC barely getting out of their own half as things rapidly unravelled after Mitch Brundle scored Dover’s first goal in the 74th minute.

Evatt said: “I’m not devastated, I’m furious. It’s happening too often now.

“It’s easy for me to say certain things and stick up for them and whatever else, but I can’t defend that last 20 minutes.

“It’s extremely poor and more than a one-off now – there seems to be a soft underbelly where one becomes two goals, two becomes three.

“No-one really gets a hold of it and it’s all well and good people saying it’s the end of the season and we’re comfortably in mid-table, we’re 11th.

“I’ve said many times that’s not what I want for this football club, that’s not what I want as a person, that’s not what I want as manager and I won’t accept it.

“The summer’s coming up fast, contracts are up for renewal and this is a club to be part of.

“I have some big decisions to make and I will make them, and there’s no-one, not one, in that dressing room who can have any complaints either way. They have had enough chances.

“We keep doing the same things, making the same mistakes and we’re not getting a different result, we keep getting punished.”