City boss may bring in fresh faces

ST ALBANS City boss Steve Castle is considering changes following last Saturday’s 4-3 defeat to Weston-super-Mare.

City appeared to be cruising at 2-0 up with just 15 minutes to play but a bizarre turn of events saw Weston come from behind twice to win 4-3 leaving Castle contemplating changes ahead of Saturday’s trip to Luton Town.

“Human nature would tell you they maybe had one eye on Saturday,” Castle said afterwards.

“I told those 11 players that if they didn’t put a performance in I am quite happy to change it. I would have thought their mentality would be to cement their place for a bigger tie.

“There are a lot of unhappy people who want to be playing in Adam Everitt, Ben Martin, Jean-Michel Sigere and Inih Effiong, who want to play in the important game so I’ve just got to go away, think about and see what I can come up with. Everybody is up for selection.”

Castle felt his side were not performing even when they were 2-0 up and described the number of errors made by his side as “frightening”.

He said: “I’m reasonably speechless. I hate losing and get very frustrated. I think Weston had five opportunities and scored from four of them. They had clinical finishing but I thought we made so many basic errors it was frightening.

“There was a bit of complacency. I don’t know where that result has come from to be perfectly honest. We’ve conceded eight goals in two home league games which is very alarming and something we’re not particularly proud of.

“I thought we didn’t play well to be honest with you. We were 2-0 up but still not playing well. They came and got something which on the balance of play they deserved.”

The City boss said he couldn’t question the commitment of his players but insisted they had to make better choices when in possession.

“The enthusiasm and commitment is there,” said Castle. “But we keep making poor decisions. To a player, they have all made their fair share of poor choices. You can’t keep doing it and you can’t keep giving the ball away. It drains the confidence out of the rest of the players.”

The City boss hinted he may have some fresh faces on board ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup clash with Luton Town and insists City will give the Hatters a game.

He said: “We’ve got to pick ourselves up and it might be a nice release for us because they’re a Conference Premier club and we’ll give them as much respect as possible.

At the same time, we’ve got nothing to lose.

“Let’s go up there and see what we can do. We will give them a game and we’re not going there just to make up the numbers. We will go there with a game-plan and maybe some fresh faces. I fully anticipate this group of lads going there and doing the right things in the right areas.”