DAGENHAM & REDBRIDGE assistant manager Terry Harris accused his players of shooting themselves in the foot as they went down to a 3-0 defeat against Notts County on Tuesday night.

by MIKE SIMMONDS

DAGENHAM & REDBRIDGE assistant manager Terry Harris accused his players of shooting themselves in the foot as they went down to a 3-0 defeat against Notts County on Tuesday night.

Daggers had held the visitors for 44 minutes at Victoria Road, but then conceded on the stroke of half time, and again, seconds into the second period.

It was a similar theme in the 2-1 loss to Shrewsbury Town on Saturday, where Daggers were level at 1-1 until just before the break, when they let in what turned out to be the winner.

"We gave a goal away just before half time," said the assistant, deputising once again for recovering manager John Still.

"You have to say it's an excellent strike by Ben Davies, but we know he is right-footed and I said 'show him outside', but they've shown him inside and he's curled it in the top corner.

"The second goal - again we shot ourselves in the foot. It was just after half time, we gave a foul away, didn't defend the free kick and all of a sudden we're 2-0 down and chasing.

"There was no bad luck or dodgy refereeing to blame the 3-0 defeat on, it was just down to the players and their inability do the basic things right.

"If teams are going to score goals against us, let them score great goals, but don't give them goals. I felt tonight we really did shoot ourselves in the foot."

Harris believes that Daggers can get out of the slump they are in, with four defeats from their last five games, as long as they start making themselves more difficult to beat.

""You tell players, 'Keep going, your quality will come through, it might be the 88th minute, but something will happen'," he lamented.

"But by the 88th we were 3-0 down and through our own inability to do things that we preach day-in-day-out - don't give fouls away, don't allow people to get balls in the box.

"We're not doing that at the moment. We've got to go back to basics.

"I know we had a win against Crewe, but even then I felt we struggled. We've got to go back to work on the training ground, work hard and hope it turns for us on Saturday at Lincoln."

The Post is now on Twitter, so if you follow twitter.com/Post_DagRed then you will get up to the minute updates on goings on at Victoria Road