Mick O'Connell questions Tadcaster Albion's 'mentality' as inconsistent start to season continues

The Brewers have struggled to string results together during the early months of the 2023/24 campaign, their first under the former Harrogate Railway manager’s guidance, and currently sit 14th in the NCEL Premier Division.

Having beaten high-flying Garforth Town 2-1 last week, Albion conspired to lose by the same score-line to struggling Bottesford on Saturday, thus missing the chance to climb to within touching distance of the top half of the table.

And a frustrated O’Connell was left questioning his team’s approach and application after watching them come away empty-handed from another fixture in which he felt they failed to do themselves justice.

"It’s just mentality. We’ve been speaking about this for a few weeks now,” he said.

"We play well against teams at the top end, but when it’s the teams who are in and around us, we struggle. It can’t be anything other than a mentality issue.

"People are coasting, people are being sloppy, not preparing right for the games – and that is up to us to deal with that. We might have to make one or two changes in-house to counteract that because one or two are miles off it.

"On Saturday, there were too many people miles off it and we can’t get away with carrying that many players.

"We had enough chances in the last 15 minutes that we could have won the game, but it wouldn’t have been deserved.”

Tadcaster host leaders Campion this Saturday, 1pm.