Haslam reflects on pre-season

Saturday’s game in Leeds against Yorkshire Amateur ended in a 2-0 win for Whitley and rounded off the club’s pre-season fixtures. Manager Nathan Haslam was pleased with the progress made during pre-season but admitted that he’ll face a selection headache when the season starts in earnest this weekend when Whitley are at home to Newcastle Benfield.
“Yes I think you can say we’re happy. Even though we won the game, the result was never the objective. It was to go out and do what we’ve tried to do all pre-season and the lads have gone out and done it over the 90 minutes. It’s a game where we’ve made changes, obviously there were a lot of young lads with us today and a couple have stepped up from reserve level, lads who haven’t been playing. That’s down to niggles with some of the more senior lads and I can safely say it was probably the best performance of pre-season, the complete package really, so I’m really happy.
He went on to acknowledge that this was all the more impressive given that several key players were missing for a variety of reasons.
“It is encouraging, the likes of Callum Anderson and Brad Hird who travelled today have got little niggles so ideally we want to get them 100% right for next week. We keep saying to these young lads, and all of the lads to be honest, if we keep believe in what doing and the way we’re playing football, teams aren’t going to get close to us and that proved the case today. It was really nice to get a clean sheet, it was a complete performance from Dan Lister, he’s been brilliant in the pre-season games he’s played. Yes, he has made the odd lapse in concentration which has cost us goals, but it’s fair to say we’re going into the season really happy with every position. I’ve 24 players available and hand on heart I could say I’d play any of them and they wouldn’t let us down and I genuinely mean that. The lads know I’ve got a headache but it’s a nice headache to have. They’re all just chomping at the bit. At this stage it’s looking very, very promising but we’ll know better when it gets to the nitty gritty next week when it gets competitive.”