Keith Hill gave his assessment after Tranmere’s 1-0 loss at home to Crawley Town on Saturday.
Tom Nichols flicked in a 58th minute winner which proved to be the decisive moment in the contest.
The result ended TRFC’s three-match winning run, and Hill shared his thoughts after the game.
He said: “It’s a team sport so it’s difficult sometimes. You can prepare the players, and we have done, and they have been magnificent for the Saturday and Tuesday games, but you sometimes don’t get the performance levels.
“I think that the opposition deserved the victory. We weren’t at our best in and out of possession energy wise and that’s my understanding from an emotional point of view and that's why we got beat.
“What you achieve is not decided by individual results, it’s what you do to respond, rebound and be positive about and there are a lot of things to be positive about.
“We are good enough and I’m pleased with the squad of players that I have got, we are getting stretched through injuries and we have to get those players up to speed, but the way that we have been as a squad, we have been superb, and I have no doubt that we will continue to be.
“We rode our luck a little but in the first half and we needed to stretch their back four and I thought we started the second half better, but it looked like a game where we just couldn’t get up against our opponent especially without the ball, and it was too easy for them to put the ball behind our back four.
“We never really got any control in possession or out of possession over our opponents so the disappointment turns into planning and working with the group.
“It’s very important that a key component of our success has been continuity and now we have to focus on slightly changing things to be better in and out of possession, better than we have been because it should have been an ugly draw.
“You can’t over or under react emotionally to a result. It is a results business, but the business is 46 games, so we have got to move on very quickly.”
Hill confirmed that James Vaughan will have surgery next week on a knee injury sustained in the recent victory at Leyton Orient.
He added: “James Vaughan needs surgery, and we don’t know how long he will be out for until after the surgery. He will be having surgery on Tuesday afternoon, so I’ll know on Wednesday or Thursday once the surgeon gives us the information that we need.”
Keith’s post-match Crawley Town thoughts and more exclusive video content is available on iFollow. CLICK HERE to sign up and watch.