Eoin Doyle scored twice to guide Swindon Town to a crucial 2-0 win over Scunthorpe United at the County Ground on Tuesday.
Swindon moved three points clear at the top of League Two, after Crewe Alexandra and Exeter City finished level.
However, Richie Wellens was less than pleased by the performance and revealed he “expected more” from what he described as an attacking side.
“A good result but a poor performance on the whole. I thought in patches in the second half we played well,” Wellens said.
He continued: “We tried going through the middle of them in the first half; we didn’t earn the right to play through the middle of them by keeping switching play and opening up gaps, too many turnovers of possession.
“If you play the ball quicker then they’re having to put that bit of legwork in. Maybe we did tire them out because we got more little passages of play and interchanges around the box in the last ten minutes.
“But overall you have to give them credit because they did make it difficult for us.”
Scunthorpe played very defensively on the night and stayed very compact in an attempt to prevent Swindon from breaking into the final third.
Swindon had 65% possession but managed just four shots on goal and had a pass accuracy of 75% but the quality of Michael Doughty and Doyle made the difference.
“I have to give credit to them [Scunthorpe], because they were very well organized,” he said. “I went to watch them on Saturday against Port Vale and they had a little more attacking threat against us, but I thought they’d be a little more open.
“They were difficult to play through, the distance between the back four and the midfield players was very good.”
The Robins are now unbeaten in their last eleven league games at the County Ground, which makes Wellens’ criticism rather unfair.
They also have a game in hand following the postponement of last Saturday’s visit to Mansfield Town and could potentially extend their lead at the top of the division to 6 points.
But Wellens has used reverse psychology to avoid complacency this season and its worked fantastically thus far.