Absence of most experienced players to blame for Harrogate Railway's inconsistency, says Rob Youhill
Rob Youhill has blamed Harrogate Railway’s inability to string a run of results together on the absence of their two most experienced players.
The Starbeck outfit currently sit 12th in the NCEL Division One standings having won five, drawn four and lost five of their opening 14 league fixtures.
They have been unable to manage back-to-back league victories so far this season, something their manager insists that they should be more than capable of doing with the quality at his disposal.
But with veteran central defenders Mike Morris (knee) and Gregg Anderson (calf) both currently sidelined due to injury, Youhill believes that a lack of leadership and know-how is costing his team points.
"Inconsistent is the only word to describe us at the moment and it is incredibly frustrating from my point of view,” he said.
"When I look at all the games we’ve played this season, I think we could have won them all, we've got the quality in the squad, we’ve just not been ruthless enough and I think we’re a bit naive at times because we lack experience.
"We’ve got quite a young group, so players like Mozzer and Gregg make a massive difference. If you’re talking about going into the transfer market at this level, those kind of players are the expensive ones because they've been there and done it and got so much experience.
"We identified that we needed to address that and moved for Gregg. He came in, we won 5-0 on his debut, he scored and every single other player raised their game in that match because of his presence. But then he’s pulled his calf and hasn’t played since.
"Mozzer is a similar type of character. These guys are leaders and they know how to win games of football and they know how to help bring out the best in the lads around them. Their presence is huge and we are really missing them.”
Having battled to a 4-3 home success over Dronfield Town last Tuesday night, Railway were beaten 2-1 on the road at Glasshoughton Welfare on Saturday afternoon, much to their manager’s disappointment.
"We were really pleased with the lads after the midweek result but then on Saturday we just weren’t really at it,” he added.
“We had enough chances to win but that spark you need and the cutting edge was missing.”
This Saturday, Railway are in FA Vase action on the road at Darwen, 3pm kick-off.