Adam Matthews faces a career of own-goal reminders
Adam Matthews (left) sinks to his knees after his own goal at Ipswich
Cardiff City boss Dave Jones has told teenaged defender Adam Matthews he will be reminded of his own goal at Ipswich until the end of his career.
Matthews, 18, put Carlos Edwards' cross into the back of his own net to give Ipswich the lead at Portman Road.
Jason Scotland then struck to ensure Cardiff lost 2-0.
Jones said: "When you come to the end of your career it's something you'll be remembered for. What's in his head? I haven't got a clue."
The Bluebirds boss now wants the youngster to show some character and bounce back from what he also described as a 'moment of madness' while admitting the highly-rated defender was not the only player at fault in the build-up to the goal.
Jones said: "Don't load the gun and fire it for me; I can fire it myself. But some of them fired their own gun and that's not what we're about.
He [Matthews] had a great opportunity and if he doesn't show a lot of character it'll be a long time before he gets it again
Dave Jones
"I haven't got time to mollycoddle people. It's a man's world now and it's a tough old world and you've got to pick yourself up.
"It's easy to blame the youngster for the goal. Yeah, he's given it away, but we lost it in midfield, we allowed pressure to come on to us, we made some silly decisions and there was a build-up to that.
"But you can't legislate for where Adam's headed it and I've done that myself in my career and it's about how you bounce back.
"And he's got to bounce back quick otherwise he'll find himself dumped in the reserves and not playing football.
"He had a great opportunity and if he doesn't show a lot of character it'll be a long time before he gets it again.
"And I want to see him come in Monday morning and have a brightness about him and be ready because it's gone.
"You can't do anything about it except learn from it and get stronger and we'll work on that. We know we've got a talent, but there's other parts of the game as well.
"But he's got to be stronger and better than that and the second goal as well, he's been shoved off it too easy and it's welcome to the real world.
"But he's got a talent and he's got to start showing that and these are the games that you're thrown into and you've got to be 'I want to keep that shirt' and there weren't too many out there in the second-half that said to me 'okay, we've got players coming back, we're going to do it right'.
Jones laments moment of madness
"So it makes my job easier."
The Bluebirds boss had few words of comfort for any of his players, highlighting only the positive aspects of Darcy Blake's performance in midfield in the injury absence of big-names such as Craig Bellamy, Seyi Olofinjana, Michael Chopra and Danny Drinkwater .
He said: "We weren't playing well. We haven't played well in the last two games and we all know that.
"We started brightly as we did the other day, but the second-half performance was not acceptable from us.
"We're not going to have them [the big names] all the time and it's an opportunity for others to show their worth… and you're only as good as what you've got on your bench.
"And we've got a good bench, but they've got to go out and show that on the pitch.
"I thought second half we were poor, passing went going astray, we weren't getting forward quickly enough.
"We ran up blind alleys and that's not us and that's just crept in in the second-half on Tuesday and the second half today.
"Because we had some great chances… and that final ball didn't go in and that's when you've got to capitalise.
"We have to be better than that. We've got to be more solid, we've got to be more fluent, we've got to dig, we've got to fight and okay we're playing nice football and everything else.
"But you've got to scrap and everything else - they [Ipswich] did and we didn't match that.
"I thought Darcy [Blake] in the centre did really well, but he's got to have other people around him as well.
"We can't just rely on one person and I thought the front line was poor as well. Nothing was held up in the second half, people were out of position, not prepared to run in behind and that's hard when you're trying to chase and get back into the game.
"So everybody doesn't get away with anything today; indecision at the back… and why that creeps in all of a sudden, it blows your mind away because it hasn't been there and now it is.
"Why is it there? What's the reason behind it? You've got to be big enough and strong enough to say 'listen, we're better than this' and that's what I've told them."
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