“Good football has to be allied with work-rate and determination,” reflected Blyth Spartans’ manager Mick Tait following his side’s dismal FA Cup 5-1 defeat at Vauxhall Motors on Saturday.
His comment was clearly born from watching his indolent side slide unceremoniously out of a competition which has provided the club with so many glorious times in the past.“We started well enough,” said Tait. “The first 25 minutes were fine, we didn’t let them have too much of the ball and I was quite pleased. However even then I noticed that we weren’t always tracking their runners and I let the lads know that it wasn’t good enough,” he added.
“Sure enough we conceded when we all expected Chris Swailes to head away, but under challenge from their centre forward, he missed it and we had no-one there to sort out the danger whereas Vauxhall had players pouring in, any of whom could have finished. Within minutes we conceded two more and went in three down at half time.
“We needed to show we could fight if we wanted to get back into the match and, to be fair, we were brighter and got a goal back when Michael Tait guided the ball home, injuring his hamstring in the process. We might have stood a chance to get a result at that point but immediately letting in a fourth on the counter attack did it for us.”
A fifth goal for the home side exacerbated the Spartans’ Merseyside misery.
With time to ruminate Tait said that Blyth “collapsed like a pack of cards after the third goal” and it certainly wasn’t ‘happy families’ in the dressing room after the final whistle.
“I expressed my feelings about sloppy defending and downright laziness and the players expressed theirs” Tait explained. “That performance proved a lot of things I possibly already knew. These need to be sorted out. The game showed up our weaknesses which lead to us falling apart. It wasn’t just one or two players being lazy, there were a number of them – people were expecting others to do their jobs. We didn’t play collectively like we have been doing recently.
“However I take the responsibility for the performance. In terms of tactics this season I believe we’ve developed well but playing nice football is pointless if we don’t play with purpose.
“It’s a mental problem we have and not a physical or technical one. It is now all about how we react to that defeat and move on.”
The large travelling support will have journeyed north trying to get their heads around what they’d witnessed, desperately hoping that their team can get their own heads straight in time for the continuing League season – this year’s FA Cup being written off like a clapped out car. Not a Vauxhall.
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