After Whitley’s 2-0 defeat at Guisborough Town on Saturday, Bay manager Nick Gray summed up his team’s performance as “Hugely disappointing.”
He continued “Position-wise in the league we’re in a good position but I don’t think we’ve clicked yet and when we do click it’ll be fine, but you’ve got to make it happen yourselves, no one’s going to do it for you and give you games and they (Guisborough) in the first half have worked hard. The first goal was embarrassing; it’s our corner and they’ve scored from it. I said a few things in the dressing room which are going to remain in the dressing room. All I’ll say is we got beat by what we did in the first half. We cannot give teams two goals head start. They had more desire than us, that’s what I’d say. They worked that much harder and if you work harder than the other team you’ve got a chance. You’ve got to earn your right to play in games and we’re not doing that and as players you’ve got to look yourself in the mirror and take your own responsibility first.”
A triple substitution in the second half seemed to lift the team as Nick acknowledged. “It did. If I’m being honest on that one it could have been five or six subbed. I’m conscious of Ellison and Gilchrist on four yellows so they wouldn’t be involved next week if they got a yellow and in these type of games you could get frustrated and get a yellow so that’s why they came off and the other one (Eddie Thomas) it’s a case of he’s on a yellow and we were thinking he might get a second with the number of times the referee was asked to yellow card someone, that was embarrassing. That’s not the way we go but it’s the way some teams go. But listen, take nothing away from Guisborough, they were the better team on the day and that’s hurting, but it’s got to hurt people. There’s a big difference between winning and losing games of football and the gap and the gulf is getting bigger and bigger for me. I don’t mind getting beat but it’s how, the manner you get beat, but today’s not an acceptable way of getting beat.”
There were no goals in the second half but Nick agreed that Whitley did not pose much of a threat “No we didn’t. We were chasing the game.”
Luke Page was back in the squad following time away for the birth of his child and came off the bench in the second half. “It was good to see Luke back in the squad. We’ve got a Vase game next week and you think who you’re going to put up. For me at this level it’s not squad rotation, it’s who keeps the shirt and our biggest problem at the moment is who deserves the shirt. As a player you want to put things right, but the only person who can put things right is you and that’s what you’ve got to do, it’s you. It’s no one else. You can say this, you can say that, you can guide them but the only person who can do things is you. Be honest and say ‘I need to do things better.’ It’s not just going to happen; you’ve got to make it happen.”
