Harper breaks ranks

With an eerie silence coming from Benton, uncannily so given their usual willingness to spout off to all and sundry, the players have hopefully been hanging their heads in shame after the weekend (either that or they`ve got their feet up at home watching Jeeves clean the Bentley). Steve Harper though became the first to speak out but avoided mentioning the boss. A case of a Shepherd gagging order:

"The fans pay a lot of money and want us to be scoring goals and playing good football.

That's not happening so they are bound to show their frustration. It's equally frustrating on the pitch - believe me. Do the players take responsibility? Very much so.

At half-time we were very disappointed and we aimed to show a bit of togetherness and get out there and score the next goal. We dominated for half an hour and then gave away an easy goal, and we have shot ourselves in the foot. But for a couple of half-chances, we haven't created any clear-cut efforts, and there lies the problem. It is very, very disappointing.

That is now 12 weeks since we scored at home in the Premiership and the stats speak for themselves. We knew it would be tough, we knew they would travel up here and be up for it. We knew what to expect and we've fallen to a couple of sucker-punches.

By all accounts we were told the first goal was offside. But still he was left in a lot of space. If he's not offside there, he should be and the second goal was an easy goal. We don't get easy goals when we go forward, we have to work hard for them. The guy is unmarked and he is not going to miss from there. We then failed to score.'

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