Player-manager Kevin Nicholson showed his disappointment the team’s performance when he spoke to the press after the final whistle.
“The result speaks for itself,” said Nicholson.
“I think I have to take some responsibility. We’re come here and planned for them. We’ve picked a formation and picked a team and maybe that’s my fault.
“I expect my players to look in the mirror and evaluate themselves and I’ve got to do the same. [We] didn’t start well. What it looked like to me is a very new team who were passing it more in hope than expectation. I can’t give them belief, they have got to go out there on the pitch. They have got to make things happen.
“This will be a very good team. We will win a lot of games. We will do well this season but they look like a group that – they needs something to happen for them, and football isn’t like that. Things don’t just happen, you have to go and make them happen. I told them in there that I thought when they came in at half-time, I thought they had lost the game. I tried to get them going, I tried to lift them but at 1-0 down there were too many in there with their shoulders slumped, looking at the floor. I was never like that as a player. I am never going to be like that as a manager and I don’t expect my team to be ever like that.
“They are valuable lessons to learn now early in the season. It’s unfortunate that we have lost another player with ‘Reidy’ [Jamie Reid] breaking his wrist, I think. Hopefully we’re getting that kind of misfortune out of the way early on. Because we have other injuries that are well documented that are freakish in nature.
“When we get a full squad, we’ll be absolutely fine. In the meantime, the lads that are fit need to make sure they produce for themselves, produce for me, and they produce for our fans. Sorry that our fans had to come such a long way for very, very little to cheer about. We’ll make sure that these boys react on Tuesday.
“I don’t want to stand here and make excuses. I picked the team and we have enough good players in there to have won this game today.
On the debut of non-contract signing, Andy Haworth:
“Andy obviously not match fit. It was probably a bit early for him to go on, but with Jordan Lee being away as well, I didn’t have much options for wide men. I thought he showed some decent glimpses. Then obviously faded when it got a bit too much. I’ve got no issue with that, he’s new in. He literally turned up at 10 o’clock last night.”
On the season so far:
“We obviously knew that the start to the season was going to be difficult, with the travelling and with the teams that we were playing. We can only send eleven men out. We got here ok. We had the hotel. We stayed over. I’ve got no excuses whatsoever. That just wasn’t good enough as a whole today. “
On bouncing back against Boreham Wood:
“Luckily there is a game on Tuesday. We’ll have the long trip back now which I imagine will be subdued. Then we’ll make sure that there is a positive reaction and make sure that this feel-good factor that there had been at the start of the season – we get it going again. I think this is going to be a good season for us. I know I have got the right people on the bus. I know I have got the right group. We’ve just got to get them firing and believing in how good they can be.”
On fixing the mistakes of today’s performance:
“I can take away certain things that I saw that I need to make sure don’t happen again.
“We passed the ball ok, but again, it was hope it wasn’t zipping about like they do in training and like they did in pre-season.
“What I want is a team that goes out and expresses themselves like they have done over the last six weeks. We’ll get there – it was always going to be a work-in-progress. It was always going to be because there were so many new players. I’m not particularly worried but I am determined that they go out on Tuesday and show what they’re about.”
On what is needed to put things right:
“That is going to come. A little bit of chemistry that they are going to build-up as they go along. One or two of them to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and go and produce. Go and do what they are good at. We’re a little bit robotic at the moment but we worked and worked and worked in pre-season. We gave them a lot of information. At the moment it looks like we’re thinking too much.”