“MAYBE it was just a bad day, maybe we are believing our own hype when we’re not there yet” – Swindon Town head coach Scott Lindsey suggested a bout of complacency might have been the root cause of a humbling FA Cup defeat to Stockport County on Saturday.

Swindon exited the FA Cup at the first-round stage courtesy of a 4-0 loss at Edgeley Park, with a brace from Antoni Sarcevic being added to by goals from Akil Wright and Ryan Rydel either side of the break.

Just seven days after a superb display away at Mansfield Town that resulted in a 5-2 victory, Swindon lacked the rhythm, desire, and quality to break down in-form County on their own patch.

Following a game which featured just one shot on target for the visitors, Lindsey began his post-match debrief by apologising to the circa 500 fans who travelled up from Wiltshire and beyond.

He said: “I just want to start by apologising to the fans. They came up in their numbers today, it’s a long journey, stood in the rain and then watched that. So I have to apologise for that.

“I don’t know whether it’s a case of us having a bad day, or it’s a case of us believing our own hype, and we’re not quite there yet.

“And maybe we feel we can just turn up and not run around, and if we’re really good with the ball then that will be enough – it won’t.

“It’s not going to be enough, and that’s what I’ve told the players after. It’s not acceptable to play like that.”

Swindon’s sobering afternoon at Edgeley Park could have been an awful lot worse if not for four good saves by Sol Brynn throughout.

Nevertheless, Town’s head coach struggled to find many positives to take away.

Lindsey said: “We didn’t run, we didn’t drop on second balls. Defensively, we were school-boy-like.

“We didn’t rotate well enough, we didn’t play through, over, or around their press.

“We never got in their half and played around the edge of the box, we never created… well, I don’t know what we created. We didn’t create anything. A really poor performance.”