Roberts shares a few home truths

By Mark Currie, Daily Post

28 December 2007

STRIKER Neil Roberts pulled no punches and made no excuses following Wrexham’s Boxing Day 2-0 defeat at home to Rochdale, a result that saw the club drop to bottom of the Football League.

The 29-year-old admitted the players at his hometown club were suffering a crisis of confidence and he was clearly embarrassed by his nomination by the game’s sponsors as Dragons’ man-of-the-match after a fourth straight loss.

“It’s very difficult to even talk after games like that,” he said. “The overall performances are just not good enough and I can stand here all I want saying that, but we have to do something about it.

“It’s just not happening for us at the moment and throughout the game I thought we were second best. We flit in and out of games and we have little spells where we play some neat football, but the end product does not seem to be there.”

Wrexham, without a win at the Racecourse since the end of September, have scored only six goals in front of their own fans this season and Roberts added: “We had a couple of good chances and we should have done better with those, but again it was not to be.

“Chris Llewellyn had a chance, the lad has blocked it and I just couldn’t get to it and there was another before that. Stevie Evans knows he should have put his chance away so it’s a bad time.

“I can completely understand the fans’ frustrations because I feel exactly the same way at the moment. When you are full of confidence the things you try to do tend to come off and you get the rub of the green, but that’s not happening for us.

“We are in a very difficult situation and it’s one we don’t enjoy. The fans are massively frustrated with us and we feel the same about ourselves. But it’s no good me bleating on that we are going to do this or that because we’ve got to just keep going.

“The effort is there, but sometimes you can try too hard and the quality tends to drop a little.”

Next up at the Racecourse tomorrow are Stockport County and the striker confessed it would be another difficult test of morale in the Wrexham camp.

“We’ve got to go again, come in tomorrow and train hard and work our way towards Saturday’s match with Stockport, which is probably a harder game again, given the situation we are in,” he said.

“We’re bottom of the league now so we can’t afford to be looking at other people’s results. We have to take care of our own performances, but we are not doing that at the moment. We have to be brutally honest, we are not good enough at the moment.”

Racecourse boss Brian Little is hoping the transfer window next week will provide an opportunity to bring in some fresh faces.

He agreed that spirits were low and his squad of players were in need of reinforcements.

“When you are at the bottom it’s hard to find that spirit and I think it’s not so much our team play as everybody feeling sorry for themselves,” he said.

“When you are going well people do things they are applauded for because they want it and we need people in that dressing room to show other people that they want it.

“I thought there were periods today, especially in our own half of the field, when we just looked a little bit lacking in real belief and desire.

“They have all worked their socks off but there are certain things missing which are going to make it very, very difficult for us to get out of trouble.

“So we need new players – one or two for definite – we need to find it within ourselves as well and I’m getting close to that point now. We have another game here very soon and players have to fight and be capable of showing me what they have got.”