We’re on a bad run but I’m passionate and won’t shirk the challenge
Tuesday night’s 2-0 loss to Bath means we have now suffered five straight defeats.
This is a bad run but every club has them and we will weather it and come through it.
Territorially, we had a lot of the game against Bath but we conceded silly goals through individual errors.
A lot of the goals we’ve conceded this season have been down to errors. In fact, I can’t think of a team who has scored a well-constructed goal against us.
You can do all the preparation in the world but it’s up to the players to be focussed on the job in hand. If they keep making individual errors, we’ll have to decide who is up to it and who isn’t.
We’re still in the process of assessing the squad and deciding what needs to be tweaked.
I hear people complaining about the turnover of players at this club over the last couple of years but that’s the nature of non-contract players at this level.
The club has been stung before by contracted players, tied down for one or two years, who have underachieved.
The difficulty with non-contract players was highlighted this week with Charlie Wassmer’s move to Margate.
We played Margate last Saturday, after the Tonbridge game was postponed, and afterwards sat down with their boss Terry Brown and his assistant Stuart Cash.
Clearly they had been impressed by Charlie and this week put in a seven-day letter, which I waived and allowed Charlie to talk to them.
Charlie wanted to go there and, as a non-contract player, we wouldn’t have been able to keep him. Margate have got the means to secure a player of Charlie’s quality on a two-year contract.
This is another example of what we are having to deal with.
In the summer, we bought a player – Dean Inman – for £2,500. That sort of money was a big deal for us, it’s not something we’d just do, even at a time when everyone else is recruiting.
Whitehawk, in the middle of the season, have just spent £5,000 in bringing in a centre-half. They are fighting against relegation but spending money to survive.
They have got the means to go and spend that money but we have to scout around for loan players or young lads who have been released by professional clubs, who have got all the technical ability but have to learn on the job in a physical league.
You get what you pay for in this division, which is why Bromley, Eastleigh, Sutton and Ebbsfleet are all in the top five.
With Charlie leaving, we have to bring in a centre-half. As I write, I’ve got a number of players on my hit list. I’ve spoken to a couple of Conference National clubs and a League Two team.
But just knowing when to sign off on a deal is difficult because of the threat of postponed matches.
I could bring someone in now but if there’s no game on Saturday, the club still has to pick up their weekly wage and so we get less bang for our buck.
I’m close to bringing back Matty Herriott on loan from Northampton, who we had with us before Christmas, but I’m waiting to hear whether Saturday’s game will be on before the forms are all signed.
I can assure fans that myself, my assistant Tristan Lewis and coach Delroy Preddie all work tirelessly behind the scenes.
We’re 15th now but the time to judge is at the end of the season and there’s still 19 games to go.
We’re 11 points off the play-offs and, even if that’s a pipe dream, while it’s still mathematically possible I’ll be aiming for it.
But I remember saying in my very first interview with the chairman: ‘I don’t mind if it takes 12 months or five years’ – that’s still very much my attitude.
Expectations may have been raised when we were five points off third place.
But the club avoided relegation by four points last season and the season before that was relegated from the Conference National. It’s been a decline and my job is to stop that trend.
Some people have said I don’t show enough passion on the touchlines – those people don’t hear my half-time team-talks!
But my job is not to be emotive, it’s to problem-solve. I analyse the game and try and implement the tactics for the team to win three points.
It is a challenge at the moment but I won’t shirk a challenge – I never have done and I don’t intend to start now.
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