Atkins blasts his under-achievers

"Not good enough" was the bitter verdict of Matlock manager Mark Atkins after the opening two matches of the new campaign yielded just a solitary point, no goals from open play and a place in the bottom four of the EVO-STIK League's Premier Division, writes Ian Richardson.

His team brought home a point from Saturday's drab curtain-raiser at Trafford after few openings for either side but the defeat to Stamford at the Autoworld Arena have set off alarm bells for Atkins and Gladiators fans.

A Danny Holland penalty put Matlock into a 3rd minute lead, but that great start could not be built upon as for the final seventy minutes, the visitors outplayed them to come from behind and deservedly go home with maximum points from a 2-1 victory.

Atkins said: "Those two performances were not up to standard. We were defensively strong at Trafford, had two or three chances which we didn't take, overall 0-0 was fair. But we simply had too many players off form against Stamford, they didn't give their full effort and didn't show the determination which was required.

"There's only Joe Leesley and Josh Meade, two young lads, of the outfield players that can come out of the game with any credit. Everyone else wasn't good enough. Stamford outnumbered and outfought us in the vital areas. They wanted it more and that shouldn't happen."

Atkins strongly hinted on Wednesday that changes would be made for Saturday's visit of Blyth Spartans and Monday's derby trip to Belper.

He warned: "Things have got to change quickly and while it's the second game of the season and not the end of the world, we must improve and I'll be looking at Thursday's training and thinking long and hard between now and the weekend as to who can come in. There's eight places to play for on Saturday."

Even a change of tactics failed to have the desired effect on Tuesday, with a change from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3 for the second half. "We set up in a 4-4-2 to try and attack and got a great start with the penalty but really we had nothing going forward and Stamford passed it around us," said a frustrated Atkins.

"They had three or four first half chances and we could have been comfortably behind. We changed things to try and stop them playing but still we couldn't get the better of them and we lost through two defensive mistakes.

"We seem to be creating half chances at the moment, we've worked at our attacking play in training for the past three weeks but we're not bringing that into the games at present."

A tough Bank Holiday programme is now on the cards and the Gladiators manager added: "Blyth are a good strong side and although they got beat on Tuesday, they'll be very tough to play against as usual. Then for me Belper's our toughest game of the season and we've got to show a lot more fight and determination down there."