Report by Julian Tyley
While accepting that Whitley have other priorities such as reaching the playoffs and an extended run in the Northumberland Senior Cup, assistant manager Barry Rizza was clearly not happy with the lack lustre way his side went out of the League Cup in a wind affected game at West Auckland. “It’s still disappointing to travel all this way and put in a performance like that which isn’t to our standards. The players know that and have been told it.
“To be honest I wasn’t happy in the warm up, it wasn’t to our standards. We spoke about it in the changing rooms and when we came out it took us 20-30 minutes to get going. When we got going, we played some good stuff into the strikers feet, creating some good chances and playing off them. But then when we came out again second half, it didn’t fall for us. They put the pressure on. The wind was against us; they high pressed us and we couldn’t get out of our own half and we thoroughly deserved not to win that game tonight. We looked lackadaisical.
Referring to the late postponement of the game at West Allotment on Saturday he added “It doesn’t help us when we have a game missing at the weekend, but no excuses, we put our hands up. We haven’t put in a performance to our levels. The lads know that and we’ll be training on Thursday and hopefully we’ll have a game on Saturday (the return fixture at home to West Allotment).
Reflecting on the opening goal after 20 minutes, where Bay keeper Mauro Asikaogu was deemed by the assistant referee to have stepped back across his goal line when collecting a shot into his chest, Barry commented “For the assistant to make the call is a hard one, but it is what it is. Sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t but that’s not the reason we’ve been beaten tonight.”
