In one of the few local games to go ahead at the weekend, Whitley were beaten 2-0 by Seaham Red Star but Nick Gray, in his first home game since taking over as Bay manager, refused to blame Saturday’s stormy weather for his team’s performance. “Conditions are the same for both sides and they adapted better than us. It was a poor quality game and not one for the purist. I was really disappointed; it was a real learning day. Yes, the lads gave their all. I had some words in there to them and the bald fact is we’re not winning games and there’s a reason why we’re not winning games and I know how to address it.
“You’ve got to work with the players you have and some of the players in there are lacking a bit of confidence. I think new faces do freshen things up and what I will say is if there are any new faces I don’t think there can’t be any arguments, but there is some talent in there and we’ve got to tweek it and work on things. You’re dealt a pack of cards and you’ve got to work with that and make things improve. I know what’s got to be done and I’m confident I’ll get it right. The main thing this year is to make sure we stay in this league which isn’t assured yet and until that happens we can’t relax as a club, as a squad. The key is to get a win under our belt. We haven’t won since November and there’s reasons for that which are quite clearly obvious. You can either drop you head or you can roll your sleeves up and work on how to work on things and get things right and that’s what I’ll do starting from half past five tonight.
“We had just one shot in the second half and that was in the 75th minute and that isn’t good enough. We had one shot in the first half, the one that the keeper’s tipped over. Two shots in 90 minutes never win any football games but I don’t just blame the forwards. I’ve been in two games now, we’ve had four training sessions and I’m learning every day. I’m confident in the ability to put things right. I’m all for giving people chances, but things need to be addressed. We will improve; the key thing is we need three points as soon as possible.”
