Di Matteo: We must cut out Brighton errors once we start the league

Roberto Di Matteo will never criticise individual players but was not happy with his team’s performance against Brighton.

Frank Lampard opened the scoring on 37 minutes, but the home side struck back quickly through Vincente before taking control of the match and adding two more, the first from Ashley Barnes a minute before the break and the third from Andrew Crofts with four minutes remaining.

“I was expecting more from them,” he said after watching his charges lose 3-1 to championship side Brighton & Hove Albion.

“I wanted more movement, and a better performance.

“We were too stretched and too long to apply any pressure.

“We did not do enough with the ball and did not have enough movement.”

Di Matteo admitted that we was concerned about the number of goals they have conceded during pre-season.

“Many of the goals are due to individual errors,” he said.

“But they are errors that will be cut out once we start the league”

With a few players still to return from the Olympics, Di Matteo indeed that there will be little additions to the squad.

“There won’t be any radical changes. I am happy with the squad that we have. As far as right-back is concerned, we have Paulo Ferreira and young Sam Hutchinson who can play there, so, at the moment, we have some cover.

With Brazil’s Oscar and Spain’s Juan Mata to come into midfield, Di Matteo added: “once we integrate these players, we will be able to effect change. however I have always said hat our objective is to win games and s ore goals.

“Once everyone is back together, we can work to improve on areas.

“it’s a problem that we have had players away at the Euros and Olympics, but we will try and get them to catch- as quickly as possible.

“we have only been training for four weeks, wit lots of travel in the USA tour.

“But we need to show more aggression and be focused and more sharper.

The absence of midfielder Josh McEachran was noted and Di Matteo explained his absence.

“I wanted to give more payers 90 minutes on the pitch,” he said.

“This meant that I was going to use less players, so I left Josh and Florent Malouda back at Cobham where they were training.