We looked poor throughout the team - Gray

St Albans City joint manager James Gray did not mince his words in his assessment of his side’s performance after their 1-0 opening day loss to Hayes and Yeading.

City showed very little for 90 minutes and Hayes’ goalkeeper Calum Artwell wasn’t tested at all. In fact, it was City’s work in the final third that the boss was particularly disappointed with.

“I don’t know what happen, we just looked poor throughout the team,” said Gray.

“Defensively we looked shakey but it our play in the final third that let us down. We got into good areas but the final pass was sloppy, the control was sloppy and we never really threatened.

It was frustrating watching it after being upbeat during preseason. It brought us back down to earth with a bang.”

Without John Frendo, who is back for Tuesday’s game against Staines Town, Elliot Buchanan and Loick Pires, who was later replaced by Warren McBean, led the line. While neither impressed, the service was lacking as well.

“I don’t think service was very good,” admitted Grat.

“We needed to be braver on the ball. In pre-seaosn when the tempo is less and everyone wants to get on the ball [but today] we were no where near brave enough and no one looked like they wanted the ball.”

He added: “We were error-strewn and it’s infectious. I don’t take many positives from this game: we didn’t create enough, didn’t defend well enough, we were not on it centrally, we didn’t have width, it was sloppy all round.

“It sometimes comes down to game management. There wasn’t a lot in the game but any time we tried to force the issue it broke down through individual errors. We need to be better for Tuesday.”

St Albans travel to Staines Town on Tuesday night, 7.45pm kick-off.