Dana Amaral was left frustrated after a disappointing 4-3 defeat away at Accrington Stanley in the Youth Alliance League.
Goals from Rio Pemberton, Amaral himself and Ellis Horan weren’t enough for North End as they left Accrington empty handed.
“We weren’t our usual selves,” said Amaral. “We weren’t able to finish chances which we had a lot of our defending (not just as a back three) but as a whole wasn’t good enough.
“It wasn’t a good performance; we expect a higher standard of ourselves."
The midfielder was able to level the game up at 2-2, but momentum switched back to the home side quickly after.
“I couldn’t tell you to be honest [when asked about his performance],” stated Amaral.
“I was happy I was able to score, but it definitely wasn’t my best performance and there will be a lot of room for improvement going into the next one.”
North End face Wigan Athletic next weekend in the Professional Development Cup and will be looking to bounce back to winning ways.
“There are numerous things we need to work on going into the next one. We need to be better at taking our chances and winning second balls, I wouldn’t call these a weakness, but they also haven’t been a strong suit of ours either.
“There was just a distinct lack of quality today which was really frustrating.
“This team can be so much better and we know that, we’ve got some really good players, when we work as a team we end up being a totally different team and if we get our heads screwed on we can pick the results back up.”