Interview by Julian Tyley
Speaking after Whitley’s 1-0 defeat at Marske on Saturday, when a second half penalty proved decisive, manager Jay Bates explained the impact of the injuries which have decimated the squad in recent weeks.
“We can’t keep on about bad luck but we looked this morning at who we’d got missing, I counted ten injured.”
Referring to the three players signed in the last few days, including two in the 24 hours prior to the game, he explained “You’ve seen the work we’ve tried to do in midweek getting players in just to field a team today. And you’ve seen that Alfie’s had to put a shift in today. He wanted and needed probably two weeks rest and Nathan the same, he really needs time to recover. That’s the numbers we’ve got at the minute and that’s what we’ve got to deal with.”
Compared to recent games it was a much improved performance with debuts handed to Joseph Power and Liam Heywood, both signed from Whickham.
“We could have gone one up inside the first ten minutes but Alfie’s hit it straight at a defender. We could have gone in at half time 1-0 quite comfortably. I thought we controlled it at times. I didn’t think they caused many problems, just the long throw ins into the box. I don’t think our keeper had to make a save throughout the game except the penalty that went in the net but other than that we looked comfortable.
“When we went 1-0 down we still thought we had something in the tank but unfortunately we couldn’t score.
“But when you look at what we’ve got missing, Jamie’s been out injured for three and a half weeks and he’s just coming back. it’s just difficult. We can’t get a front three out. At one stage we couldn’t get a defence settled and now we can’t get a front three settled. It’s not like just one or two people missing it’s always in a different area of the pitch.”
Midfield was an area where Whitley looked stronger than recently and Jay picked out new signing Liam Heywood for praise. “Liam is one we tried to get in last season, he’s a little bit like Jakey Forster, he wins a lot of balls, he works hard. And with Luca coming back after his holiday we knew in the midfield we were going to be alright. That’s an area where we’ve been lacking a bit and getting over run but with people we’ve had missing we’ve had to play Lennox and Kieren deep and that’s not naturally their position but that’s what we’ve had to deal with.”
Adam Cameron returned in goal and Jay explained “We knew Preston was struggling with a dead leg. He took two days away from Gateshead not training. He did train on Friday but we thought we’d go with Adam and give him an opportunity.”
Regarding the key moment in the game, the awarding of the 64th minute penalty Jay commented “Personally, yes it is a penalty but I think before the penalty there was a foul on Alan so you could say it’s 100% a foul on Alan inside the box, so the ref’s going to blow for that but after the foul, Alan’s been clumsy and given the referee the option to give them the penalty.”
