A lack of character will be the biggest concern to Sligo Rovers boss John Russell following their defeat to Bohemians last Saturday, according to RTÉ Soccer analyst Richie Towell.
The Bit O' Red shipped four goals in a lifeless display in The Showgrounds to sink to the bottom of the table after two matches.
Towell said Sligo seemed to lose hope after just two minutes of the encounter when an error at the back led to a Dayle Rooney strike for the visitors.
Colm Whelan’s second half hat-trick ensured Bohs returned to Dublin with maximum points.
Speaking on this week’s RTÉ Soccer podcast, Towell said: "At the start they went 1-0 down and I saw zero characters [in their team], nothing.
"You go 1-0 down, you want to have your senior players to grab the lads in and be like, 'let's come on, it's still early in the game, we've still 90 minutes to go’. The heads went down straight away.
"It was a schoolboy defending and you could just see which is a big concern for John Russell, the character then after that was zero.
"They didn't have anything about themselves to get back into the game. They didn't weather the storm at all."
Keith Treacy said Sligo fell into a mistake of trying to play a style of football that didn’t suit a difficult pitch and extreme weather conditions.
The Bit O’ Red have enjoyed their best form mid-season in recent years, when both the surface and the weather is at its best. But they have often started the year poorly.
The former Republic of Ireland midfielder said: "Sligo just didn't seem to have the bite, they just wanted to have a game of football over and over again.
"There's going to be different questions asked of you throughout the season and Sligo came up short on the fight.
"When you turn up and you know the pitch is a little bit boggy, the rain is there, there's wind, football goes out the window.
"It's about playing the conditions and I know we can look across the water and think, ‘oh well they play it that way’.
"In Ireland it's a different kettle of fish, you're going to have to play the conditions, especially this time of the season.
"Sligo just didn't play the conditions, John Russell tried to play way too much football for me. I think Bohs played the conditions an awful lot better."
Fellow analyst Alan Cawley said he feels his hometown club are in the biggest danger of relegation this year.
"I think they're down the bottom. I'm so worried about them. Purely for, if you lose your best players, it's so hard to replace them. There's nobody there [in the current squad] that is replacing Owen Elding. Nobody.
"One thing that really stuck out for me, and this is why I give maybe a Galway an edge, or someone else, that there's the physical side of it.
"Seb Quirk was the only one running around, getting stuck in. The body language from some of them [was unacceptable].
"I think John Russell has even bigger problems than maybe what we outlined last week."
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