Team was weak and naive says assistant Vaughan
FRUSTRATED assistant manager Lee Vaughan fears that Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Bromsgrove Sporting has scuppered any play-off hopes for Stratford Town.
The Bards were second best against a side struggling at the foot of the table and Vaughan accepts that matters are out of their hands going into this weekend’s final game at Royston Town.
He said: “That was by far the worst performance since I’ve been here at the club. The Redditch game took some beating but we’ve managed to top that. We were like rabbits in the headlights. It proved just too much for us and not enough people wanted to get on the ball and play.
“If you are not cool enough to get on the ball and express yourself then you need to go down fighting and swinging but we did neither of those. We froze – the occasion was too much for us. We needed three points to get into the play-offs – I believe that three points against Bromsgrove and three points against Royston would have put us in there.
“The goal at the end flattened us because we deserved nothing from a game that was there to be won. It is so disappointing that, when everyone has worked so hard, you put in a performance like that.
“We were weak and naive. I said before the game that we weren’t a side that could be bullied but I was wrong. They have come here with Nathan Blissett and he has won every header. We didn’t stay with runners and in the end, we got what we deserved, a smack in the mouth. We don’t deserve to be in the play-offs with a performance like that.
“It's OK to play when they are sitting on the edge of the box and you can chuck the ball in. It’s easy then. We want players to come out and express themselves from the start because they have licence to do that.
“I don’t want to beat the players up too much because they are a good young group but I’m frustrated that we have lost a fight and it’s embarrassing that we have served up something as bad as that.
“We now go to Royston and do everything ewe can to bounce back but it probably won’t be enough which is disappointing because, on our day, we are good enough to beat any side in the division.”
