Ritchie’s blast at ‘too nice’ players
“NOT good enough.” That is how Strathspey Thistle manager Brian Ritchie summed up his first three league games in charge of the Jags.
The club, sitting at the bottom of the Highland League table, stumbled to a third successive defeat courtesy of Saturday’s narrow 1-0 reverse at Lossiemouth.
Despite his side meriting more out of the game than they received based on their second half performance, Ritchie was still livid with the tame showing from his troops for the opening 45 minutes.
“It showed us as a management team who can and cannot do a job for us,” he fumed.
“We gave players instructions before the game and they didn’t carry them out, which means their positions are now in jeopardy.
“We move on to the Nairn game in midweek and anyone who is left out for that one can have no arguments because our first half display on Saturday was not acceptable at all.
“I keep saying to the players that football is not just played with the feet, it is played with your head as well.
“The players have to think, listen and do as they are told and until such times as some of them take that on board then they are going to struggle at this level.”
He added: “Lossie obviously had a game plan on Saturday and they stuck to it but we were too nice for the first half and they knocked us about a bit.
“It was certainly a very disappointing first half and it won’t be accepted again. No one really came out with any plaudits at all but, to be fair to the players, they went for it in the second half and had a bit of a go.
“At the end of the day though, the table doesn’t lie and we are bottom with no points having scored just one goal and conceded eight. That is not good enough.”
Nikki Smith scored the only goal of the game shortly before half-time to leave the Jags with a sense of déjà vu seven days after they had conceded another all-important opener to Inverurie Locos at a similar point of the match.
“We shot ourselves in the foot in the first half and that is not acceptable,” Ritchie stated.
“Our start to the game was lacklustre with one or two of our players on the back foot and not giving their team mates what they deserved.
“It was the same old story because we gave the players a right rollicking at half time and they went out and looked like a completely different team.
“However, we went to sleep and didn’t concentrate right up until half time and the disappointing thing is that the goal came from something that we had explained to the boys to look out for.
“We told them what sort of positions to get into but they didn’t do it and allowed Nikki Smith to come across our defenders and put the ball in the back of the net.”
More about the Jags in this week’s Strathy
