We ran around like headless chickens - Seager

WHITSTABLE TOWN boss Marc Seager slammed his players after they reverted back to their old ways against Walton & Hersham at the weekend, writes Stephen McCartney.

Frustrated Seager has experienced the highs and lows recently, having seen his side hold league leaders Kingstonian to a 1-1 draw at Kingsmeadow with ten-men, before dumping Blue Square South Bromley out of the Kent Senior Cup with a 3-2 win at Hayes Lane in the semi-finals.

However, you feared that the Oystermen would lose to Walton & Hersham when the two sides met at the KRBS Belmont back in the league.

The Swans came away with a 2-1 victory, and Liam Quinn became the sixth player to miss from the penalty spot - the tenth spot kick that Whitstable have not scored from this term.

“To be honest with you, I knew at half-time we’d struggle today,” admitted Seager, when speaking to www.whitstabletownfc.co.uk.

“I said to the boys, this changing room was a lot different to the changing room at half-time last week (at Kingstonian) and a lot different to the changing room at half-time on Tuesday night (at Bromley).”

Unhappy Seager admitted his players have problems raising themselves for the lesser lights in Ryman League Division One South.

“It’s very easy to raise yourselves for the big games,” he said. “If you can’t go to Kingstonian and raise your game there’s a problem. If you can’t go to Bromley in a semi-final of a Kent Senior Cup and not raise your game, then there’s a problem.

“Where the problem is, is again, you come today (against Walton & Hersham), a team where we could have gone level on points with and draw them into us a little bit and what we’ve done is we’ve given the chance away, put in a sloppy performance and a performance that I felt lacked quality.

“The decision making was poor, the endeavour we spoke about the last couple of games wasn’t there, people were running around like headless chickens.

“You get away with that in the reserves and in the pub sides, you don’t get away with that in this level, they’re up against good players.

“But they’re running around like a headless chicken, without a clue.”

Whitstable Town have bagged 12 wins and 6 draws from their 38 league games this season - leaving them just seven points above the drop zone.

Although they should have enough in the locker to maintain their current status, Seager is unhappy with their ability from the penalty spot this season.

“We’ve missed TEN, TEN penalties this year - it’s embarrassing and I’m embarrassed for the football club to be honest with you that it’s like that,” he fumed.

“When you think over the season how many points those penalties have cost us, its unbelievable.

“It’s not as though one or two people are having them, we’ve had six different penalty takers this year, but there’s nothing as a manager you can’t do anything about when you’re standing on the touchline.”

Whitstable welcome Fleet Town this Saturday for what is their penultimate home game of the season, before travelling to Sittingbourne on Easter Monday.

These are the kind of sides that the Oystermen are likely to beat as Fleet Town are in third place - five points behind the leaders and Sittingbourne are in sixth - just four points underneath the play-off zone.

“It will be a tough weekend, but we’ll raise ourselves for those games as we always raise ourselves for the big games, that’s why we’re where we are in the league, that lack of consistency,” added the boss.

“Ability wise we can beat anyone in the league, consistency wise, we’re where we should be.”

Quotes courtesy of www.whitstabletownfc.co.uk

Whitstable Town v Fleet Town
Ryman League Division One South
Saturday 11^th April 2009
Kick Off 3:00pm
At KRBS Belmont, Belmont Road, Whitstable, Kent CT5 1QP