Interview by Julian Tyley
Whitley’s early season woes continued as their injury hit side went down 4-3 at home to Birtley Town. Three goals down inside the first half hour, they got back in the game but manager Jay Bates was quick to point out that mistakes in defence had cost them the game. ”The basics were done wrong. I think in the first 15 minutes you could see that at the back, mistakes by senior players. They know that it wasn’t good enough and it wasn’t to their standards. Then you’ve got an uphill battle from two defensive errors in the first 20 minutes The first one, inside ten minutes into the game” (when an attempted clearance rebounded off an opponent and into the net) “was a weird goal to concede.
“After half an hour it was 3-0. They did have some dominance in that they did put us under pressure and they were going at us. but I think after that we settled ourselves. Lennox went through on goal and the keeper’s made a great save. We knew something was coming and he’s done another great one, to turn in the box and put it in the bottom corner and we knew we could get back in the game then. We got another one right before half time and we were in the game now at 3-2 going into the second half.
“I think we started brightly in the second half and had a couple of chances and the keeper’s made another good save but then they went up the other end and scored. Maybe we were pushing too many forward? – but again it’s another mistake by ‘Erra’. It was a bit like Tuesday at Penrith with George. He’s just stepped in at the wrong time and there was a massive gap behind left that two on one with Micky Scott, so that was 4-2 and I thought that would be heads down but again we went up the other end with Mikel with a volley into the top corner and the keeper’s made a great save. There was a little bit of pressure from then but we got another goal from Alfie to make it 4-3 but it was just a little bit too late.
“We need to do the basics right and I think at times we were out battled, I’m not going to lie about that.
“We had a conversation about that. We need to get a little bit stronger. It wasn’t until Alan came on that we put some pressure back on them. I think they got away with quite a lot of tackles but we let them do that. Alan came on and ruffled a few feathers and gave us that little bit of energy and spark so yes we can be in a battle as well!”
Explaining the impact of the injuries he added “You’ve not got much options to change things so we had to gamble with players. Nathan gave 55 minutes and we got a goal out of him but you could see he wasn’t the Nathan he normally is and was pulling out of balls. You could see the same when Jamie came on. He’s just back from a dead leg and we got 35 minutes out of him. That’s what we’re having to deal with at the minute, but fortunately for us we’ve got a few players coming back so that’s a positive.
“I thought the bright sparks today were Lennox, Griggsy and Spencer who’s done really well for the first half. I thought George has done alright in the 9 which is where he plays on a Sunday so we know George can play there. He can play a number of positions so it wasn’t strange for him to play up there and you could see that he holds it up and brings people into play.
“It was the more senior players today that let themselves down.”
