FRUSTRATED Phil Brown stressed he only wants committed players at Barrow next season.

The former Premier League manager endured a sorry return to Swindon Town as the Robins continued their play-off push.

Brown had hoped the Bluebirds could put a dent in their bid. But Louis Reed’s late winner, minutes after Matt Platt cancelled out Josh Davison’s opener ensured a second straight defeat for the visitors.

And Brown was left less than impressed with the excuses in the dressing room after the final whistle at the County Ground. “As far as I’m concerned I want committed players at the football club next season,” insisted Brown. “I want players who want to win games of football. We committed the cardinal sin of not putting a foot in in the penalty box.

“Coming up with the excuse of ‘I might have given a penalty away’ I’m not happy with that.

“It doesn’t matter if you have 10,000 people at Swindon with two games to go or if we’re at Barrow. We just didn’t have enough of them.

“I thought we they got swallowed up again like on Tuesday night into some euphoric promotion campaign which we have nothing to do with.

“It’s two 2-1 defeats in a row now and I’m bitterly disappointed we haven’t got something from the game.”

Swindon were much the better team but squandered great chances to put the game to bed after Davison’s opener.

And those missed chances could have come back to haunt them as Platt levelled late on.

But Reed popped up with a welcome winner to ensure victory on the final day would secure a play-off spot.

“I don’t subscribe to the word unlucky,” admitted Brown. “It’s something I learned from a very early age in football. Lucky is a word that gets thrown around, but it’s rubbish really.

“If you lose a game of football it’s because possibly you deserve to lose the game.

“Without a doubt in the first half they were in the ascendency and playing better football than us.

“When it was 1-0 we got into the ascendency. At that stage I thought we could put a spanner in the works and it wasn’t for the want of trying.

“I could say that I was quite proud of the effort in the second half to get back into the game of football.

“You take a draw in the 95th minute, but that’s when the final whistle’s gone and you sit back and think ‘that’s a good point’.

“Today would have been a decent point for sure. At the end of the day we’ve come away from Exeter with nothing and we’ve come away from Swindon with nothing.”