JORDAN Lyden admits Swindon Town were off their game all over the pitch during Saturday’s disappointing 3-1 defeat at Crewe Alexandra in League Two.

Town actually led at the break at Gresty Road courtesy of Eoin Doyle’s strike but Richie Wellens’ side fell away in the second period.

Chris Porter’s double and one from Charlie Kirk saw table-topping Crewe claim all three points and leave Town’s return from the last four league games standing at just one.

Midfielder Lyden conceded Town were way off their usual leave against the Alex and even felt some members of the side went hiding times.

“Where do I start? We just weren’t good enough from the first minute,” said former Aston Villa player Lyden.

“The boys know themselves that we weren’t at the races.

“In some stages of the game we got the ball down and played but, overall, we weren’t good enough, so we will leave it at that.

“Crewe did put a bit of a squeeze on us. They are a very good side – they are top of the league for a reason.

“We had a game plan set out to play against them where we thought we could expose them in some places, but it didn’t really work.

“In some places, people were hiding from the ball and we weren’t really brave enough to get on in – and that is not us.

“If you looked at us at the start of the season, we were brave in getting on the ball and playing through teams. On Saturday, we didn’t do that.”

Lyden is well aware that the current dip in form is a growing concern for the Town squad, staff and their supporters.

Although difficult to maintain a high level throughout the course of a campaign, the 23-year-old feels a backs-to-basics approach may serve Swindon best as they look to get back on track in the coming weeks.

“It is hard to put a finger on it,” said Lyden, who joined Town over the summer.

“We were playing really well at the start of the season but it is a long season.

“It is very difficult to walk a league unless you are one of the top teams in the world.

“We have to get down to the nitty gritty things and when it is not going well, we have to grind out results

“Unfortunately, we didn’t do that on Saturday.”