Eric Kinder spoke to us about the 1-0 win over Chester City:
"If there's one set of conditions that footballers hate to play in it's strong winds.
It doesn't matter whether it's Youth football, Sunday League football or first team football, it's simply the worst weather condition that you can ever play in. If you don't have good technique then it shows you up, and that was an horrendous day.
Both teams went at it hammer and tong and Chester came here to make it really hard. I'm very good friends with the Chester coach and he came up here to stick one over on us. He does want us to win the League, because we are good friends, but there was no way that he was going to make this game easy.
We had to defend with the wind blowing at us in the first half, and I thought we did that well.
Every time the ball went in the air it became a lottery so I was pleased that we got to half time at 0-0. The only way to describe it was that it was a shocking game of football at that point.
I told the lads that all they needed was one goal, and that would be enough, and it did eventually come for us. Mind you, that was only after a lot of shouting and reorganisation and by trying to do things differently to make sure that we made things happen.
That's my job on the sidelines, and it's the only way I can influence things, by changing the formation and by encouraging them. I spoke to the lads after the game and I told them that some of them need to show more desire. Most of them do, but I want to see that burning desire where I know that every one of them will go out there and put their head where it is going to hurt, or go in for that tackle that might be a tough one.
We got our break at the end when Chris McDougall's header went just over the line off the post. It's the kind of chance that he should score from, and he got lucky in a way because it came back towards the keeper. The linesman gave it, but I have seen occasions like that when play has been waved on.
By that stage of the game I was happy to take anything. We did dominate it for the most part, but it looked like being another that was going to slip away.
I said to the players, when you have a choice between doing something, or letting a situation slip by, always do something. That relates to me as their coach as well. I couldn't let that game end with the formation and players that we started with. We wouldn't have won it if we had.
Sometimes you get lucky when you make those changes, and sometimes you don't. Thankfully today mine worked for me. It gave us a bit more life when Matt Duffy moved in to midfield and when I gave Conor Tinnion a free role up front. Steven Swinglehurst added a bit of steel to the back four, and the switch to three up front made us look more dangerous.
It's a game that we couldn't afford not to win, so it became win at all costs for the last 20 minutes or so. If those changes hadn't worked then I would have taken it on the chin, but at least I would have been happy with knowing that we had tried everything.
With us chasing Wrexham and Burnley it does get to the point where the performance takes a back seat, and the result becomes important. Today may not have been pretty, but I class the situation we found ourselves in as a further part of their development. If these lads progress to first team level then they will find themselves chasing games and playing in different positions. That is where the fans will demand that they put their necks on the line. At this level I have to find the balance between making sure that we win, without forgetting that it is about development.
We rescued a win out of a certain draw in this one, so they will have taken something from it. In all honesty, we should have won the game by three or four in the end. Once we scored we saw that they collapsed, but we didn't take things seriously enough for my liking. James Wood put one over the bar when Conor Tinnion put it on a plate for him, and that was a situation that annoyed me. It wasn't that he missed, that happens, but to see him run away from it and laugh about it was not professional. I do not like that at all. He has to be better than that.
My ranting and raving is 70% frustration and 30% fact. That 70% from me should show them how much I care, and I want them to be the same. Jonny Blake completely ignored our formation in the second half, but I tell you what, at least he was out there and trying to make things happen. He got away with it on this occasion, and if we'd lost the game I'd have ripped him to shreds, but in this one it worked and I have to pat him on the back for that. In his mind he wanted to win the game, and it's that desire that I want from everybody.
Like I say, I don't want us to be gung-ho and forget the fact that we are here to learn, but I do want to see a little bit more from some players in certain situations.
I have seen that the unofficial website listed the squad for next season and assigned them all to supposed positions. Somebody replied by pointing out that there were some positions with more cover than others. That just isn't the case. With the lads we have signed added to the lads already here we have competition for positions in all places. Anyone who has watched the current group would know that. So, there is no position next season that has only one person to cover it. That's a healthy state to be in. Obviously these lads have their preferred position, and I will always start them there, but there will be games where they will have to switch. With the players that we have here I am confident that we can do that."
Team - Mitchell, Lakeland, Aldred, Cleary, Duffy, Law (McDougall 69), Davison (Wood 89), Blake, Tinnion, Reid (Swinglehurst 63), Bowman. Subs - Gillespie, Sloan.
