IAN Evatt said he had forgotten how much he hated the losing feeling, after finding himself on the wrong end of a 2-0 scoreline at home to Sheffield Wednesday.

The Wanderers boss admitted his side had responded poorly after a mistake from captain Ricardo Santos led to the opening goal for George Byers.

Two minutes later they conceded again as Liam Palmer extended the Owls’ lead.

Evatt had been happy enough with the way his side had performed to that point but was disappointed with his players’ reaction.

“We were probably on top in the game, we were in control, and had just had a brilliant chance and, as we know, the first goal in these big games is always vital,” he said.

“The mistake for the first goal, they happen, especially when we are asking the players to play this way but it is the reaction to the mistake which is the important thing, we didn’t get back into the box and the second goal came off the back of it because it rocked us. Concede one but never two.

“It was an uphill battle from there.”

Evatt made five changes, bringing in Santos, Jack Iredale, Dapo Afolayan, MJ Williams and Amadou Bakayoko, and he felt freshening up the side that had beaten Morecambe in midweek was the right thing to do.

“We can make changes – that team is the one which played well against Wycombe, Port Vale, and it has been doing well,” he said. “It is our first defeat in 14 games and only the fourth since the second week in January so it feels strange, and that is credit to the players. We are not used to losing games and it is a horrible feeling that we’d kind of forgotten about.

“It is always the reaction to adversity that is the most important thing. This game has gone now, there is nothing we can do about it. We just have to react positively and react on Tuesday night.”

Asked if it was simply the proverbial ‘bad day at the office’ Evatt added: “What is a bad day at the office? For me, it was us who were in the ascendancy and trying to do things. We had the big chance early on.

“Mistakes happen and they changed the dynamic of the game because they had something to hold on to. I don’t think they created a great deal – one chance second half – but other than that it was pretty much all us.”

Wanderers struggled to get themselves back into the game in a frustrating second half, leaving Evatt facing up to a first defeat of the season.

Asked what he had learned from the Wednesday game, he added: “I have learned that I don’t like this feeling much, and I had forgotten what it was like.

“I have also learned that mistakes can happen and it is how you react to them. If you give the ball away in a poor area then you have to react really quickly and your team-mates need to react really quickly to get their team out of the mess.

“Once that goal went in we had to reset. It can’t become two because then you are really fighting an uphill battle.

“This isn’t game over, it isn’t the end of the season.”