Report by Julian Tyley
A 2-1 win over Newcastle Blue Star put the smiles back on the faces of the home fans in a bumper crowd of more than 600 at Hillheads on Saturday.
Assistant manager Barry Rizza was delighted with the victory after a recent dip that saw Whitley slip to fourth in the table. With the top six all winning, just three points separate second from sixth with the season almost at the halfway stage.
“It was a hard fought win. Obviously with them getting Paul Brayson in as a new manager it’s given them a little bit of a lift. They came at us from the start with lots of energy but I’m very very happy with the three points.”
It was a bad start for Whitley with the visitors scoring inside four minutes and Barry was not happy with the defending in front of keeper Mauro Asikaogu, who kept the ball out twice with great saves before it was knocked in at the third attempt. “We’re very disappointed with the goal. We were not reacting to the second and the third balls. Mauro’s pulled some great saves off again and he’s really reliable. He does this week in week out.”
Enforced changes are a recurring issue at the moment and for this game, captain Michael Scott and Jack Errington were unavailable while striker Mackenzie Sharpe was suspended. However, Graham Williams returned after completing a three match ban. “It’s one in one out; we never seem to have the same eleven there from one week to the next. Of course that’s why we have a squad and fair play to Graham, he’s kept himself ticking over and he’s come in and done a job for us today.”
The winning goal came from Alfie Livermore, who earned praise from the assistant boss. “Alfie’s a very clever player. We’ve said to both wingers, we want you to be more direct getting those shots off. You need to start chipping with some goals. We said that at half time that you’ll get one, and fair play to him he took his goal very, very well.”
Speaking about recent signing Gildo Da Silva, Barry commented “What you’ve got to remember with Gildo he’s another very young kid. He’s come in, taken his opportunity. He didn’t know the lads when he arrived but I think you can see now he’s starting to feel a little bit at home, he’s getting better but as I say he’s just a kid.”
Striker Nathan Nkunku signed just hours before kick off came off the bench in the second half “Nathan was injured for quite a while. He knows himself that he’s got a bit of work to do in training and get that little bit of sharpness, but I think you could see when he came on that he knows how to hold the ball up and I think he’s going to contribute to the squad 100%. It’s a squad game; there were a lot of tired legs after the game today but you’re going to get that with heavy pitches in the winter months and it’s about rolling your sleeves up and digging in for each other.”
Towards the end Blue Star piled on the pressure but as Barry said “teams are going to throw the kitchen sink at you when they’re 2-1 down in the last 20 minutes so we probably did drop off a little bit deep but we’ve got some experienced lads and we’ve seen it out.
“I’m happy to get back to winning ways, and fair play to Blue Star they came and had a real go at us and made a game of it.”
“It was great to see our fans turn out in numbers. You’re always going to expect it in a local game they (Blue Star) had a good number of fans numbers as well.
“We’ve said it from day one, Whitley Bay have got a great and loyal fan base who’ve been coming for years but we’ve got to try and drag these kids in if that means us as a management team going out to schools, get these kids in and breed the next generation of fans for the club.”
