I emailed Paul Barber this morning, and got an immediate response, I asked about the mental strength along the lines of my OP and some of the other responses in this thread. Here is Paul's response:-
That is exactly my point, you just detailed a lot better than I did. Not sure how you fix a lack of mental strength, they need some sort of mental coaching
Agreed, he was truly pathetic tonight but it wasn’t just him, there was hardly a player on the pitch who didn’t give the ball away at some point during the match.
Our strongest player mentally, Kayal, didn’t even get a look in.
It isn’t about being bad players. It’s about our inability to handle the pressure of a crunch match. That the only conclusion I can come to for such poor passing
Bottled it, end of story