Saints boss far from happy with start to season

SAINTS boss Steve Castle admits this is a ‘concerning time’ for the club after watching his side get knocked out of the FA Cup by Luton Town.

It was not Saturday’s result which is worrying Castle, but more the realisation that there doesn’t seem to be any signs of improvement on the horizon and he says he is losing patience with one or two players.

The Saints have recorded just one win from the last 19 league outings and Castle says the most worrying aspect of this bad run of form is the lack of goal-scoring opportunities that his side are creating.

“Bad stat isn’t it? I know there were plenty of draws with that but most worrying is the lack of goals, lack of opportunities and the amount of stupid mistakes that are being made that are leading to goals at the other end,” said Castle after the Luton Town match.

“It’s a concerning time and we’ve just got to go back to the drawing board and shake things up a bit. There are certain people who have had enough opportunities who I’m fed up with now.

“We’ll maybe have to move them along and get other people in and see where it goes because I’m not giving up on things. I don’t think the league is an outstanding league as in a Newport County being there. I think teams will be beating each other and we’ve got tough fixtures coming up and we need to make sure we’re getting ourselves up the table.”

Castle was disappointed with Saturday’s defeat at Kenilworth Road but says it would have been difficult for his side to muster a surprise result out of nowhere considering The Saints’ recent form.

He added: “We tried to make something of it, especially in the second half but the finishing was of a quality that you would expect of the league higher.

“At the moment the lads are struggling for form and I don’t really know my best team. Nobody on Saturday (against Weston Super-Mare) really assured themselves of a place and I left a couple of people out and probably the nature of getting beaten brings more questions than answers and we might need to shake things up a bit.

“(Pelayo) Gomez pulled his groin on Wednesday and unfortunately we missed him. He scored two goals in the last round and would have been used which is a bit unfortunate but it gave Inih Effiong and Sean Shields a chance to show what they can do.

“We just went with a 4-4-2, nothing unusual in that and we went with the two young lads up front and retrospectively they were probably slightly a bit too young for it.”