Depleted Runcorn Linnets have a week to forget

Dec 4 2008 by Dave Bettley, Runcorn and Widnes Weekly News

STEVE Wilkes has admitted the last seven days have been the darkest since he took the Runcorn Linnets manager’s job.

His team suffered two consecutive home defeats with Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Winsford United following a 4-2 midweek reverse to Abbey Hey.

Wilkes said: “It has probably been the worst week I’ve had since I have been at Runcorn.”

This wasn’t just down to results, however.

In the last two and half hours before kick-off against Winsford, Wilkes had been forced into five changes to his intended line-up.

Ged Courtney had to withdraw because of a family illness, winger Michael Young texted the manager to say he was “full of flu” and striker Michael Morrison’s knee injury flared up again.

To make matters worse, neither wideman Josh Howard, who had been set to make his debut, nor newcomer left back Dominic Studley reported for duty.

Wilkes said: “Managers can’t prepare for things like that. I pick my team on a Friday night and go to bed with it in my head.

“It might be someone will ring up with a bit of flu but you don’t expect to lose five.”

With Scott Dignan absent because of his brother’s stag family party and fellow centre back Robbie Moore reporting back from holiday with a heavy cold, resources were severely stretched.

Wilkes said: “Having said that, the team we put out was still good enough to go and win it – without a shadow of a doubt.

“We’d got the week off with three points against Glossop and with two home games against two teams who have been struggling, we had been looking for three wins.

“I just think the last two games have been poor.

Michael Morrison had given Linnets a long-overdue 28th-minute lead against Abbey Hey but victory hopes soon went awry.

Wilkes added: “Inside 30 seconds, poor defending has let them in and lo and behold, they score again before half-time through even worse defending.

“The third goal came from the mistake by Clive (Brown). You can’t legislate for that. It can happen.”

Within two minutes Melford Knight (66) had headed Runcorn back into contention but Abbey Hey added their decisive fourth from a well-struck 25 yard free-kick.

Wilkes admitted: “I thought Robbie (Holcroft) should have saved it.

“He set the wall up one side and it went in the other where she should have been.”

If fans felt things couldn’t get any worse against Winsford United, they surely did.

An unsuspecting Rob Whyte had hit a post for Runcorn.

But seconds later, horrendous marking at a set-piece had given the away side a 1-0 lead which was extended in the second half as Linnets went to pieces.

Wilkes added: “I just thought we were awful. All over the place with no shape.

“We’re conceding a lot of goals and what we tried to do was nullify that.

“We didn’t have any wide players available as such with having to play Rob Whyte up front and tried to make it a bit more solid in the middle of the park.

“We started with Tom Baker in front of the back four, trying to be a shield to allow the three midfield lads to try to get forward.

“But we are conceding far too many goals when we are attacking. It seems to break down and, whoosh, we are under the cosh.”