St Albans City manager Harry Wheeler was forced to apologize to fans following their exit from the Herts Senior Cup – after a mix-up of communication on Twitter.

The club said on the social-media platform that a full first-team squad was travelling to Hitchin Town for the semi-final clash.

However, after the Southern League side had triumphed 2-0 over a much-changed City side, which showed six changes from Saturday’s defeat to Dartford and included a number of trialists, Wheeler admitted that victory in the competition was not high on his agenda.

He said: “We’re in a poor position in the league and the league is our concern. I make no excuses about that and I’m not shy to say this wasn’t a massive concern for me.

“If we stay up in the league, I don’t think anyone will care we haven’t won the Herts Senior Cup.

“I’m not saying it doesn’t matter; I’m saying there are massively more-important things.

“Supporters wouldn’t disagree with that. If we lose today but win on Saturday I don’t think they’ll be that bothered.

“The club asked me if the first team were going and I said they were but some of them were on the bench.

“Obviously if the fans who came in thought it was a waste I apologise but I don’t write the Twitter.

“If they’d rang me up I would have told them who we were going to play.

“It wasn’t a secret. It wasn’t a secret three or four days ago.

“Let’s not kid ourselves. Whatever the result was today, we have to go and win Saturday.

“And we have to look at people to do that.

“We didn’t but we could have seen something which would have been good for Saturday.

“We can’t do that in a league game because we’re in a crucial position so we have to do it here.

“There’s no other game to do it in.”