Manager’s reaction to the defeat at Northallerton

Nathan Haslam said he felt deflated after the 1-0 defeat at Northallerton. “It wasn’t nice, it was a scrappy game, but you could see Northallerton were really scrapping hard and working away for each other in all areas of the pitch and they’ve grinded out a 1-0 win. We’ve had chances, one for Coleby (Shepherd) that could have changed the game, but they’ve had chances as well. We weren’t very good at the back again today; it’s a real head scratcher. We get it right one week going forward then the next week we’re not quite there. Defensively on Wednesday night we were absolutely superb all over the park. It’s the same personnel and it’s the same problem of consistency. I think we’ve competed today but I think they’ve been better at competing. I don’t think either team did enough to win, and from our own perspective it’s so frustrating.”
Regarding the injury that forced Andy Jennison off after less than half an hour, he explained “It’s a dead shoulder. He’s cup tied on Tuesday and with no game this weekend he’s got time to recover. But I’ve got to say I thought Dan (Lister) was ‘top drawer’. He came on and was really assured. You can get caught cold as a keeper when you come off the bench. There are a couple of things I’ve asked Dan to do and it was nice to see him doing them, so yes, I’m very happy with Dan.”
Acknowledging the support from the fans who travelled down to Yorkshire for the game, Haslam added “We really appreciate the fans, seeing them come through the gate before kick off, we could see there were a lot of them there. They were optimistic and we were optimistic, but it’s a funny game football. You work hard; there’s a lot of hours of work put in by all of us, management and players, and we don’t mean to come out and not win football games. We know it’s not good enough and it’s very frustrating.”
Looking ahead to the midweek League Cup tie at Consett he commented “We’ve got a game on Tuesday night that takes us away from league action. The pitch at Consett will suit us. I’ll be going into the game hopeful that we can put in a good performance over the full 90 minutes. We’ve no game next Saturday but it won’t mean time off for the players. We’ll be working on a lot of things over the next week.”