SOUTHEND United’s caretaker chief Gary Waddock felt the Shrimpers gave themselves a mountain to climb during an ‘unacceptable’ 4-1 defeat to AFC Wimbledon.

The out of form Blues slumped to a fourth reverse in succession.

And Waddock was left ruing a slow start to both halves.

“We had a poor start to the first half and a poor start to the second half too,” said Waddock.

“It’s been a common theme and we gave ourselves a mountain to climb.

“We had to climb a number of mountains today and it was always going to be difficult for us after that start.”

Wimbledon were able to expose a poor Blues defence.

And Waddock was frustrated by the manner of the goals given away.

“They’re sloppy goals and the players have to take responsibility for that too,” said Waddock.

“Whether that’s marking someone from a corner or a free-kick they have to take that responsibly because the goals we do give away are sloppy.”

The Shrimpers reacted strongly to going two goals down with Timothee Dieng heading home.

But the resulting spell of pressure did little to lift Waddock’s mood.

“We had a good spell and I thought we did well during that but the only thing that matters is the score-line and the score-line was unacceptable yet again,” said Waddock.

“ You can have a good 25 minute spell but the outcome is still the same.

“There’s something drastically wrong with that. It can’t continue to happen but it’s just not happened recently, it’s been over a long period of time now. “ And Waddock also feels the management team could not have done any more in the build up to the game.

“As staff we’ve got on with it and we’ve conducted ourselves in a professional manner,” said Waddock.

“I’m not sure we could’ve done much more in terms of preparation and things like that.”