Woods: We were awful
The Mariners served up an abysmal first-half display at Blundell Park yesterday to hand their opponents a two-goal start before Barry Conlon reduced the arrears from the penalty spot in a 2-1 loss.
It left the club five points adrift of third-from-bottom Lincoln City having played a game more and in the same position as they were 12 months ago – fighting for their Football League lives.
A spirited effort in the second half did little to help Woods' mood.
He said: "It was very, very frustrating. I think the first 45 minutes was the worst under my management. We were awful.
"I don't think it's the lowest I've been since I've been here but it's definitely the most disappointed.
"I was as optimistic as anybody after the Morecambe game that we would get that reaction and that progression and clearly for the first 45 minutes we didn't."
Understandably critical of his players, Woods also shouldered some of the blame having dropped Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro and Nicky Featherstone to the bench to make room for Conlon and the returning Olly Lancashire.
"I've got to hold my hands up. I don't think the changes I made worked," he admitted.
"But saying that the goals we conceded were individual mistakes, it wasn't people getting caught out of position. They were individual mistakes which are very difficult to legislate for.
"The reason we are where we are in the league is that we make too many of those mistakes. I didn't see Port Vale making clear-cut mistakes to give us a goal, even when we were piling pressure on them towards the end.
"Nobody makes individual mistakes on purpose. Everybody knows that, but they do tend to knock the stuffing out of you."
Woods went on: "Particularly in the first half, I don't think you can say any of the units of the team worked very well.
"I don't think the two wide players did enough when we were out of possession, I thought the two in the middle got isolated and their distribution wasn't as tidy and as good as I've seen it in the last few weeks."
Woods also felt the usually rock-solid Rob Atkinson was well below par and replaced the central defender at half-time.
"Rob has set a very high standard for himself since he's been at this club and didn't meet it today for me," he said.
"We needed to change the personnel. It obviously wasn't working and that was purely a football decision.
"We were better second half, we showed some energy, a little bit of passion, but it's easy to show that when you're 2-0 down."
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