Grimsby Town’s 3-1 away defeat to Swindon Town was labelled their “worst performance for a long time” by head coach David Artell, who was left unimpressed by his side’s lack of intensity.

Illness had ravaged the Mariners camp in the build-up to the weekend, but Artell was in no mood to make excuses for his team who fell well short of the expectations they had built up away from home this season.

The hosts took the lead just three minutes in and did not look back; the scoreline could have been far less appealing for Town had Ian Holloway’s side not been wasteful in certain instances.

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Town have been knocked out the ground before, but Artell did not expect his side to be outworked as they were by a Swindon side scrapping for points near the bottom of the table.

He said: “We never got going. That was our worst performance for a long time. We won six of our last seven games away, but we’re not gonna win games when you don’t run around. It wasn’t about tactics or who played where, that was about running around and fighting for the ball.

“Simple as that, if you don’t want to compete, it doesn’t matter who it is, then you’re gonna come a cropper – and we did today. There’s probably one player who did okay today; the rest were way off.

“Yes, we had the worst of the conditions in the first half, and yes, we’ve had illness in the camp all week; however, that’s not reflective of what we’ve been as a team home and away.

“I was shocked and surprised, and I asked the team whether there was something they or we had done in preparation that led to them playing that way because we weren’t good enough.”

This fixture was significant for the Mariners supporters who wanted to see their side get one over their former boss Holloway, who was celebrating a significant personal landmark.

Artell did not want to get caught up in that storyline before the game and it was not his concern after as he tried to pick the bones out of a uncharacteristic performance from his team.

“I don’t care who is in the other dugout,” he added. “I never will; that’s not on my list of priorities as a manager. I’m worried about ensuring our team performs well, running around and fighting for the shirt.

“I’m fuming because because that’s not us. That’s the worst we’ve played in a long time. They’ve let themselves down here and have let the football club down. We’re all in it together, but it’s a shock because we haven’t rolled over against anyone. It felt like we did here.

“The conditions were tough in the first half with the wind blowing at us, but we dealt with it fine at Morecambe, so that isn’t an excuse. The tone was set from the first whistle, where the ball ended up back with our goalkeeper and then kicked off the pitch.

“We had a chance to make it a grandstand finish [after Danny Rose’s goal], but that wouldn’t have been justified because it was a poor performance.”