Nah, if you start criticising players publicly you're gone
Aye, not specific players, I spoke poorly. It's just there's a pathological aversion to even acknowledging having a bad game and being self critical that seems to be part of a larger psychology about public positive thinking/messages/etc. I don't think Steve coming out and saying "yeah we weren't good enough full stop" would be a death sentence. Not that he'd ever be anyway.