Lennie to give players one more chance

Last updated : 22 October 2002 By Michael Morris
Lennie told the Echo

"There must be no repeat"

With players like Layton Maxwell Leo FW, Andy Campbell and Chris Barker waiting in the wings and Scott Young and Jason Bowen returning from injury Lennie is threatening to make changes but he will give the players one more chance.

"My instant reflex, my instinct, is to leave the starting line-up as it was against Blackpool. Very few played anywhere near what they are capable of, but they have done pretty well so far this season and deserve another chance. Danny Gabbidon was spot on and Neil Alexander was outstanding in goal, but that was about it.

"But if this performance was repeated against Tranmere it would be a different story. We have players sitting on the bench champing at the bit to get in. I'm not going to tear things to pieces on the back of one bad result, but I want to see an improvement next Saturday. Our long unbeaten away record was surrendered too cheaply for my liking."

Lennie is therefore set to continue with the lopsided 4 - 4 - 2. In my opinion we are asking too much of Rhys Weston on the right hand side. He's being asked to cover the whole line and because Willie Boland, Kav and Gareth Whalley are all trying to compete in the same area of the pitch we are less effective in midfield. To me that was the exact problem at Blackpool. Midfield were in each others way and could not control the ball effectively so continually lost possession and when Rhys was up in attack and City lost the ball we were exposed as Blackpool were able to break into acres of space and despite Spencer Priors efforts to cut out Hills cross the ball was deflected into the goal. In some ways it was an unfortunate goal for City to conceed but it highlighted a weakness, in my opinion we need a proper right sided midfielder in front of Rhys to get some balance, then we will have width in attack and Rhys can stay back when defending. Exactly as it is on the left with Legg and Croft.

I'm not the manager though, it's Lennie's shout and I expect an unchanged line up.