SHAMROCK ROVERS BOSS Stephen Bradley cut a frustrated figure after seeing his side lose 1-0 to Bohemians in Friday night’s Dublin Derby.

The Hoops have now lost three and drawn one of their league games against their rivals this season, and a section of the club’s support expressed their anger at the final whistle.

Boos greeted the result, while chants of ‘we want Bradley out’ could be heard in part of the ground.

The only goal of the match came on 68 minutes. Roberto Lopes’ sloppy concession of the ball enabled Bohs to counter attack. While Lopes recovered well, making a fine recovery tackle on Keith Ward, the ball then broke kindly to substitute Eoghan Stokes, who placed it clinically into the corner of the net just four minutes after being introduced into the action.

Afterwards, Bradley lamented the avoidable manner in which the goal was conceded.

“I’m obviously disappointed,” he said. “We were starting to play a bit better in terms of the second half. For the goal, we lost concentration and got punished.”

The Hoops had won five of their past six league games before Friday night’s setback. However, last week’s surprise FAI Cup loss to First Division outfit Drogheda, coupled with a third successive defeat against Bohs in Tallaght, has made it a couple of days to forget for the team.

“We obviously need to look at it,” Bradley said. “It’s the first league game we lost in a while. We’ve been good. I’m just disappointed with the goal we gave away. If we don’t lose concentration, the game finishes 0-0. There was not much creating of chances, so I’m really disappointed about the goal we gave away.”

There were a couple of other individual errors made by Rovers on the night, but Bradley feels such mistakes are inevitable given the team’s bold approach.

If you pass the ball, you’re going to give the ball away,” he added. “You have to accept that.”

Despite the defeat, with eight games remaining, Rovers will still retain hopes of a top-three finish. They are currently four points behind third-place Waterford with a game in hand. However, he acknowledged that the derby matches have been a recurring problem this season.

“None of the derby games have been great games. Obviously you know that.

“We’re just disappointed with the goal, because if we don’t give it away, no one was creating chances. We lost concentration and gave away a terrible goal.”

However, Bradley played down suggestions that even a draw would have been a bad result against Keith Long’s side.

“That’s the arrogance that gets you in trouble,” he said. “You have no divine right to beat anyone. When you’re not playing well, on the pitch, you take what’s on offer. What was on offer was a draw.

“Of course, you want to win every game, but you don’t deserve to win [every game].”

Bradley said he could empathise with fans’ palpable anger in the stadium as a result of the below-par display.

We lost a big game. I totally understand it. I’m frustrated along with them… We’ll be fine. We’ll turn it around.

“There’s anger, there’s frustration, every emotion as you can imagine is there [in the dressing room]. We have to go away, we have to look at it, we have to regroup.”

Asked whether his players’ character could be called into question following repeated failures in the pressurised environment of a derby match, the 33-year-old manager added: “No, because in a lot of big games we’ve been good. There’s nothing wrong with our character.”

The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!