Furious Moore tells players few home truths

Moore says the Millers will not even qualify for the League Two play-offs unless they improve and admits there is a problem at the Don Valley Stadium.

Since his return to the club as manager five months ago, Moore's side have lost only five games out of 20 in in the league but that did not stop Moore cancelling the scheduled day off for his players following the 3-1 defeat to second-placed Bournemouth on Tuesday night.

"People talk about the 'top three' but, if we are not careful, we won't be in the top seven!" said Moore. "When you turn in a performance like that, when there is so much at stake, you have got a problem."

Victory would have lifted the Millers back into third place, just a point behind the Cherries with three games in hand, but they are now seven points adrift of the top two and still in fourth.

"Given what was at stake, the performance was totally unacceptable," he added. "We had a chance to get back into the top three, a chance to go a point behind them in the league, yet we turned in a performance which, at times, was spineless."

Moore kept his players in the dressing room for over an hour after the game but refused to go into detail about the views that were aired.

"What went on in the dressing room stays in there, but one or two home truths have been told," he said. "We sat down and there was constructive criticism about everything that is going on. Hopefully, we have all learned from it.

"We didn't have a leader and we were very lucky to come in leading at half-time," he reflected. "We scored from the only bit of decent football we played. But at 1-1 we collapsed like a pack of cards."

Moore refused to blame the state of the Don Valley pitch which has no undersoil heating and only just passed a pre-match inspection after several postponements in recent weeks.

"I am fed up with people using the pitch as an excuse," he said. "Their back four didn't."

Defender Gavin Gunning, who joined the club on loan from Blackburn Rovers last week, was one of several players guilty of performing under par.

Moore said: "For all his lack of experience, Gunning is better than that. Both the full-backs struggled. I don't want to single anyone out – but it was obvious where we were weak."