Exeter defending 'not at the professional level'

Exeter City interim manager Matt Taylor says his team's first-half defending at Blackpool was "not at the professional level".

The Grecians struggled to deal with their opponents in their key relegation meeting in League One, conceding after 29 minutes as they went on to lose 1-0.

The loss left Exeter - who have not won in 15 games - three points from safety with five games to play.

"That first half I have to describe it as that's not at the professional level," Taylor told BBC Radio Devon.

"We'll give them a little bit of credit in terms of the way they played, but that's a little bit self-inflicted."

He added: "Not taking anything away from Blackpool but I'm yet to see a team apart from Cardiff go through us in different areas of the pitch.

"It goes down our throats, it goes down the middle, it goes down the outside of us, it goes over our backline.

"Any ball into the backline causes a problem and that is irrelevant if we've got four (defenders) on the pitch, if we've got five, if we've got three, the same problem occurs and teams know it, we know it.

"People will be saying 'oh, it's your job to change it', the personnel's there, we had the numbers there, that's my biggest gripe, my biggest frustration, my biggest disappointment."

The win for Blackpool moves them five points clear of the drop zone and up to 18th place in League One, one place behind Exeter's opponents on Monday, Doncaster Rovers.

Should Exeter lose to Doncaster they could be six points from safety if other results go against them with just 12 points left to play for.

"It's massive because of what's happened today," Taylor added.

"It's so, so frustrating that we weren't able to produce more for a longer period in that first half.

"The last five or 10 minutes of the first half we improved, but we know where the game was lost today."