Micky Mellon said Oldham Athletic‘s first home defeat of the season and first loss in 10 games hurts but has challenged his side to start another run.
Latics went into the game having propelled themselves into the play-off positions with four National League wins on the spin, and five in all competitions.
They would have been optimistic of staying on track against Solihull Moors after Mark Kitching cancelled out Jack Stevens’ 51st-minute opener with just over 10 minutes remaining, particularly given the volume of chances created.
Indeed, Mike Fondop was denied by the crossbar just before Stevens broke the deadlock.
But within three minutes of Kitching scoring his third goal in six games, substitute James Gale restored Solihull’s lead, with Marcel Oakley adding a decisive third in stoppage time.
Josh Lundstram pulled a goal back in the sixth of seven added minutes, but Latics ran out of time in their pursuit of an equaliser.
“From our point of view, you can’t lose three goals at home and expect to win games and score twice and not expect to win,” said Mellon.
“If someone had said to me ‘you’ll score twice’ I would think we’re going to win that.”
“We were sluggish, but no more sluggish than Solihull in the first half. We still had opportunities in the first half as well.
“We were a bit better in the second half in terms of a bit more tempo to us and playing with a bit of risk, and the boys who came on were quite bright, to be fair. But when we get it back to one each and you think there’s going to be plenty of injury time, why there wasn’t more I don’t know because this season we’ve had some unbelievable amounts of injury time against us.
“I’m not going to blame the referee for the result but some of his decisions were bizarre and the amount of added time was wrong; there should have been more. But that’s the story of him.
“In terms of us, we need to defend better, we need to be more clinical in front of goal, especially with the chances that we created. I don’t think I’d be saying anything different than anyone who’s been here today.”
He added: “We were on a good run that’s come to an end and it hurts, and so it should. That shows you what our expectations are.
“We’ll have a crap weekend, like you should when you lose games and it matters to you. But it’s about now getting going on Monday morning and looking forward and getting us on track and trying to start another run.”
And Mellon believes the backing from the stands will stand them in good stead in their recovery from a setback.
“What I will say, and I’m not just saying it just to be popular or whatever, the fans were fantastic today,” said the Latics boss.
“They were terrific. Terrific in terms of trying to get us going and kept rolling us on and didn’t come off us. They stuck with us all the way, and I feel for them. We – me and my players – are disappointed that we haven’t given them the result they deserved from some of the defending that we did and some of the lack of being clinical in front of goal, and I think that was the whole story of the game.”
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