By Lauren Brassington
Having watched his players stumble to a 2-0 home defeat against AFC Telford on Saturday, Altrincham FC manager Jim Harvey warned: “No players are safe”.
Six weeks after taking over the Moss Lane hotseat, Harvey confessed he has ripped up his early plans to stabilise the squad. The defeat pushes Altrincham into the bottom three of the Vanarama North, with only one win in the last 14 games.
“It was very disappointing because I thought we were showing signs of improvements over the last three or four games. It was very poor,” he said.
“It’s not that Telford were particularly good, but we were really bad, and unfortunately after that performance we are right back to the drawing board”.
With a few early shots on target Altrincham started well but a disastrous 25th minute backpass by Robins’ captain Alan Goodall was snapped by Telford centre forward Connor McCarthy for the visitors’ first.
Things got worse after the break when Bradley Reid lobbed Robins’ ‘keeper Tim Deasy, leaving the home side with little hope of levelling.
“I don’t think anybody came out of that game with any credit,” said the manager afterwards.
“The first 5 minutes would sum the game up. We simply didn’t compete”.
Harvey has ordered his players to report for extra training on Monday ahead of the visit of bottom-placed Bradford Park Avenue the following night, now a must-win game.
“The boys need to prove themselves,” said Harvey, who admits he is still getting the measure of the squad he inherited from Neil Young.
Asked which areas of the squad need improvement, Harvey simply replied: “All areas”.
“We didn’t play as a team. There were eleven individuals out there today. I need to assess who is good enough and if I was a player, I’d be concerned”.
Lauren is a first year Multimedia Journalism student at MMU. She is also a huge sports enthusiast, particularly football. Check out her blog at http://laurenjournoreview.wordpress.com
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