SOUTHEND United boss Mark Molesley felt the Shrimpers’ 2-0 defeat to Cheltenham Town was a ‘disappointing step back’ for his side.

Blues had been hoping to build on back to draws in their last two League outings But they never looked like troubling the Robins, much to the frustration of Molesley.

“It was a bad afternoon for us and we’re very disappointed,” said Molesley.

“In the last two weeks we felt we were building and had taken a couple of steps forward but today was definitely a step back.

“We’ve set standards here and we didn’t quite reach them.

“We’re bitterly disappointed and we came up short. “ Blues went behind after just 10 minutes against Cheltenham with Liam Sercombe scoring from the spot.

And Molesley was disappointed with how the Shrimpers reacted to going behind.

“We started slowly and we needed to react more positively to the penalty,” said Molesley.

“But we were really slow out of the blocks and we played on the back foot not the front foot which is not the way we want to play.

“We struggled to get going but it was a game of few chances and we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot by giving away soft goals like that.

“But we didn’t really create too much either.”