Video: Boss takes the blame for Town loss
Manager Micky Mellon held his hands up for Shrewsbury Town's costly first-half performance after they went down 2-1 at Walsall.
The Town boss switched tactics after just 16 minutes when he took off centre-back Jack Hendry and brought on midfielder Ian Black to switch from 3-4-1-2 to 4-3-1-2.
By then the Saddlers had taken an 11th-minute lead through Kieron Morris and doubled it through Rico Henry's deflected strike a minute before the break.
Salop were much improved after the break but although Black had a shot deflected against the bar, Mat Sadler's header on the hour only proved a consolation and Mellon held his hands up afterwards.
Defeat means they have to wait until Saturday's final home game of the season against Peterborough at the earliest to clinch the three points they need to be safe in League One.
The Town boss said: "I was disappointed and I have to take responsibility for the team selection in the first-half.
"In hindsight, I should never have played it but, unfortunately, that's something I don't have the benefit of.
"I could see right away it wasn't going to work and we weren't up to the pace of the game and we weren't anticipating in midfield. It was too loose, so we had to change it early.
"We got to half-time and to be fair we started the second half with a real intensity and if we'd have started with that, it could have been a different story.
"But I'm disappointed that we can't move from one game to the next without worrying who's in form and without changing shape.
"All credit to them for the second-half performance, we had a right go."
Mellon named an unchanged team despite it being their fourth game in 11 days and admitted the players looked fatigued.
The arrival of substitutes Shaun Whalley and Larnell Cole after 52 minutes injected some energy.
Mellon said: "We just want some consistency in selection and hope the lads can step forwards on the last performance,.
"But you can't see into their fuel tanks or inside their heads and a few looked a bit chuggy. We just weren't at it.
"Three centre-backs is something we play sometimes against certain systems, but I wanted to find a system that suited us and try to get that systems to adapt.
"It didn't do that and there were people coming off us, in too much space so we decided to go a different way.
"With the energy we brought on with Shaun Whalley and Larnell Cole, we started to get in between them and get those little passes and can probably find ourselves unlucky not to get that second goal."
