BURTON Albion manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink felt his side were second best and did not deal with second balls well enough in our opening day defeat at Wycombe Wanderers.
The Brewers were fighting an uphill battle early on as goals from David Wheeler, Anis Mehmeti and Josh Scowen in the first half sent the hosts on their way to three points.
An improved second half performance did not yield any goals and the result was a 3-0 defeat.
Hasselbaink said post-match that his side did not deal with Wycombe's gameplan well enough and paid the price for those first half errors.
"We were second best," said Hasselbaink.
"They played from second balls, that's what they do, they hit Vokes and you need to squeeze the pitch, you need to work harder and condense that as much as possible so they can't pick up the second ball.
"There's certain things I want to see back that we have worked on in pre-season, and we didn't see it.
"We fell asleep at throw-ins - all three goals came from a throw-in, and all three get thrown in to their number four, who we didn't pick up. We worked on that.
"The second half was a lot better. We played, we passed, we got in behind them, but then you need to finish.
"We need to get back, look at the video, show them and we need to improve, really quickly."
Hasselbaink also confirmed post-match that Michael Mancienne, who missed out on today's squad, is injured and will miss a lengthy period of time.
"Mance is injured and will be out for three months," said Hasselbaink. "It's his knee and he needs an operation.
"But we don't complain, we will get better, we will get stronger, and we will win matches. We will sort it out but we need to sort it out quick."
We wish Mance a speedy recovery.