Karl Robinson admitted he expected more from his Salford players after their 3-0 League Two win at home to Barrow.
The Ammies handed their fans a belated Christmas present with three goals at the Peninsula Stadium, courtesy of first-half goals by Luke Garbutt and Tyrese Fornah and a late strike from Kylian Kouassi.
Salford’s perfect day was slightly marred by a sending-off for Fornah, who was shown a second yellow card for his clash with Kian Spence shortly before full-time.
And Robinson insisted there was better to come from his squad.
“As you know, the result is the be-all and end-all,” he said. “Today we were nowhere near what was expected of us and the levels that we’ve set over recent weeks.
“Maybe the skill of a good team is when you don’t play too well and still get a result. I’d put that down to some of their finishing as well as some of our quality defending.
“That’s nine clean sheets this season and this is what we’ve got to be. We’re not under any illusions, that was an under-par performance.
“To get over the course of the Christmas period, it’s really low-level outputs and we are missing a lot, but we don’t come out and moan over things, we just get on with it.
“I think it’s testament to the squad that they came in and they performed to the levels that they have today.”
Robinson will lose Fornah for their next outing – against Morecambe – and was far from impressed by referee Elliot Bell’s handling of the late incident involving the goalscorer and Barrow’s Spence.
“The big sour point for today is losing Fornah, I thought he was brilliant,” he added.
“Here’s the problem, when you get tackled aggressively – because the tackle was way over the top in my opinion – that was just the way it came down.
“Just before that, their lad’s gone to compete for a ball and just put his boot around our centre-back’s neck. He didn’t mean it. I could see that, just like T (Fornah) didn’t mean it.
“Today we’ve been hindered by decisions not going our way, like a penalty we didn’t get. It’s 12 months since we had a penalty and that’s unheard of. It’s getting embarrassing now.”
Barrow boss Stephen Clemence cut a frustrated figure after the defeat, so much so he offered the Bluebirds’ travelling fans a heartfelt apology.
“Losing by three is not acceptable, even away from home,” he said. “We’re very disappointed and obviously more than 500 people came down to support the boys today and they’ll go home unhappy and we can only apologise to them.
“I’m not going to come out and say I think we played well or anything like that, because I’d get slaughtered. But what I would say is, that I thought we created a lot of pressure in the game.
“I know that we’ve had the most touches in the opposition box all season and we’ve had some really good opportunities when the game was 0-0, the boys were aggressive around the box.
“They’ve scored from a wide free-kick which has gone through everybody and that shouldn’t happen – it’s a bit of a free goal.
“The second one was a deflection from the edge of the box and the third one was poor, that came from a straight ball over the top when we were chasing the game.
“When you get your opportunities, when you’re in a game that’s level away from home, you’ve got to take them and we didn’t do that. So unfortunately they’ve gone on to win the game.
“I’m really frustrated but I haven’t gone in there and lost my head with the players because they’ve had a go at it.
“Yes, we’ve come up short today but there have been other performances where I’ve been a lot less pleased.”
