Ian Holloway hopes Swindon Town gave their travelling fans enough to stick with them after defeat at Salford City.
The 1-0 defeat at the Peninsula Stadium left Swindon without an away goal this season after four games and dropped them to 13th.
Although they only had one shot on target, Town created the openings to take something from the game and were far more competitive than they had been against York City and Oldham Athletic.
Holloway went into the away end ahead of kick-off to speak to the fans, and hoped that they would be enthused by the performance, even if it was another defeat at the end of it.
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He said: “It is very difficult at times when you are not getting the results that you want and not getting the performances, but it is absolutely vital that people understand that I really care about their commitment.
“It is vital that we acknowledge the fans’ wonderful belief, effort, time, and money, and I want the lads to understand that.
“I am sure that the ones who came today would have seen the improvement and will be coming the next time that we are away, not just doing something else because we lost again.
“That takes some doing, particularly after last week’s bad showing, the bad showing at Oldham, and our record against [Salford].
“Thank you very much [to everyone], and I thought that it was really important that I told them that.”
It came after a week of controversy sparked by Swindon’s 2-1 EFL Trophy defeat by Crystal Palace under-21s, when Holloway was alleged to have sworn at a young fan who told him to “sort it out.”
Holloway stressed that he wanted to show respect for the fans, despite what was claimed about him.
He said: “It was just something that I wanted to do. I think that it is really important to show respect in the way that you talk to people.
“Someone said that I did not do that to a young boy, but that young boy was very, very rude to me after I gave him the time of day, and he thought that it was alright to be like that.
“I certainly did not say what the boy said that I did say, and I wanted to prove to our fans that I am a half-decent person, and the people who know me know that I am.”
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