DAMIEN Johnson felt poor decision making cost his side dear as Rovers Under-23s were beaten by West Ham United at Ewood Park.

The Hammers scored early in either half, as well as midway through the opening period, with the game effectively over by the time Xande Silva made it 3-0 in the 49th minute.

Joe Nuttall reduced the arrears from the penalty spot, but it was the defending that concerned Johnson most.

“I’m disappointed. I just think the goals we conceded, the individual mistakes and errors, there’s not much you can say,” he said of a seventh defeat in 11 league matches.

“We can discuss the final third stuff where we weren’t good enough and we will talk about that, but fundamentally you have to be good at the back and look like we’re solid and have a good base to build from.

“We gave them opportunities through our passing and that’s the disappointing thing.

“We spoke at half time about keeping the back door shut because we felt we would create chances, because we did get in to good positions in the first half and were let down by the quality of our final cross or our final pass.

“To concede the third one was the killer and overall I’m really disappointed.”

The first goal, scored by Silva, saw Tyler Magloire dispossessed on the edge of his own box after goalkeeper Andrew Fisher tried to play out from the back.

“At this level they’re still learning and it’s important we try and teach them that side of the game,” Johnson added.

“It would be easy for me just to get them to punt it long.

“But it’s about the decisions of when you do it. If they press then they are leaving space somewhere else, and they have to recognise that.

“Our decision making was poor. When we’d had two or three passes we needed to look for the spaces elsewhere and we didn’t do that.

“If they are going to leave them three on three at the back then let’s go and test them. We didn’t do that.”