Hard work is key for Kirkwood

The Gladiators are badly in need of points at Witton Albion this weekend after their fourth home defeat of the season left them in 17th spot and head to Wincham Park after the club’s players and management talked through their shortcomings at an extra training session on Tuesday night.

Kirkwood, pictured left with joint boss Craig Hopkins, believes the discussion on getting back to winning ways to quickly climb the EVO-STIK League Premier Division table will stand them in good stead.

“We’ve had a good chat at training, the lads got some things off their chests, things are very frustrating. Individually we have a good team but collectively it’s not quite there. It’s a case of continuing to work hard. We always try to be positive, the confidence will come back to the team with a win. We go out looking to win every game whether we’re playing the top of the league, bottom of the league or whoever, that’ll never change.

"As a team we’ve got to man up. It’s okay wanting to win, the difference is going into the game really wanting to win. Going that extra mile. People talk about last season, then we grafted and went that extra mile, we had eleven players crawling off the pitch at the end, this season I’m not really sure we’ve been getting that.

"We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, we roll our sleeves up, puff out our chests, play for the badge, the club and the fans. We had a good crowd in on Saturday and fluffed it which is really frustrating. Now it’s back to basics.”

Looking back on the weekend’s reverse, a second successive 3-0 defeat after their loss at Ashton United, Kirkwood said: “Saturday was a disaster and a surprise. We’d had a week off, the lads had looked sharp in training and were buzzing in the changing room and in the warm-up so to play like that was a massive surprise. We never got started and going a goal behind early on meant we were always chasing the game.

“The only positive to come out of the game is that we created chances despite playing so badly. At the start of the second half we could have levelled it but then a lack of concentration saw us 2-0 down and with ten men against a good side, it was always going to be difficult from that point on. Nantwich were quick out of the blocks, we weren’t. The buck stops with me and Hoppo [Craig Hopkins] and although it sounds like we’re repeating ourselves, we’ll carry on working hard to get things right.”

With the need to “freshen things up”, Kirkwood hopes to see two new faces in the squad at Wincham Park alongside new striker Ricky German after he arrived from Chesterfield last week as a replacement for Tyrell Waite following his recall by Boston United.

The joint manager added: “We had an inkling that Tyrell might go back with Boston changing their manager but we’ve had Ricky on our radar since last season. I repeat that we want to bring players in permanently but it’s more difficult than people imagine. People who come in from divisions below ours must be ones who can improve us. If you look at Conference North it’s more difficult convincing them to drop down a division but we hope to have two new lads with us for the Witton game.”

Matlock were without full-back Micky Harcourt against Nantwich with a hip injury and he is rated as 50-50 for Saturday. Michael Williams missed Tuesday’s training session with a bad back but is expected to be fit. Callum Lloyd, sent off last weekend, begins a three match ban but Joe Doyle-Charles is available again after suspension.

Image courtesy of matlockmercury.co.uk

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