Paul Stancliffe felt his U18s side didn’t reach the standards they are capable of in their 2-1 defeat at home to Chesterfield.
Despite the defeat, the manager is backing his side his side to bounce back against York City next weekend.
Stancliffe said: “It’s disappointing because obviously we didn’t play the way that we were capable of and sometimes you’ve got to have defeats; sometimes you do lose games, but it’s all about how you lose it, and today we lost it in the wrong manner.
“It was a good goal by Branden, he has a great delivery on him and when you put the balls in the area like he did then it is always going to cause problems for oppositions.
“I am very confident of a reaction next week from the lads, I don’t want to use the excuse today of it being a young team, but it’s the first time this group of lads have played together.
Stancliffe saw the positives in the change of personnel in his squad as U15 defender Ethan Bojang featured for the first time this season for the U18s side.
He added: “Ethan Bojang is an U15 player and I thought it was a good opportunity to use him so that I can assess him ahead of next year.
“We had a lot of the U16s in the team today, which is basically our squad for next year, so if we can get that settled now then that’s the positive we’re going to take long-term.
“We want to prepare the younger lads for next season, so it gives us a strong advantage if we can get more games under the younger ones then they’re going to find out more about how we like to play.”