Manager John Rooney was “disappointed” after his 10-man Silkmen side were held to a 1-1 draw away at Spennymoor Town on Saturday afternoon.
Fin Shrimpton’s goal on 32 minutes sent the Silkmen in front at half-time before Danny Johnson’s late penalty following Cameron Borthwick-Jackson’s sending off saw Macc return to East Cheshire with a point in the Enterprise National League North.
Reflecting on the result in the North East, Rooney told Silkmen TV:
“We did well to go 1-0 up, we should have been a couple up before that and at the minute we can’t hit the back of the net and that’s something that we need to do about it as staff, but overall, I’m disappointed.
“All over the pitch, we’re looking, and we couldn’t control and pass the ball to a blue shirt. We had chances but we didn’t have someone to put the ball in the back of the net, and that’s the type of games that are going to be an issue.
“Looking at our defensive performance, we conceded a lot less than we did last year, so I think the defensive side of the game is okay, it’s the other end of the pitch I’m concerned about.
“When you can’t get a group of players together to pass to each other and look after the ball, and if you do lose the ball and at times, we are going to lose possession, react in the right way. If you look at the performance on Tuesday, it’s like a different set of players turned up; we had no fight or no desire to win a game of football, and in the end, they got what they deserved.
“When you go down to 10-men, your back is against the wall. On Tuesday, they showed up, and we expected to rock up and have the same energy levels. We looked after them during the week as we knew they had tired bodies, they went for a pool day, they had a light day on Friday and we turned up and it looks like we have given them tough sessions all week.
“It’s probably something we need to look at and assess if we should have them on the grass more. We try to look after them as best we can, so on a Saturday afternoon they are going into the game feeling as fresh as we possibly can be, I just don’t think they wanted it.
“The disappointing thing is that you get fans who pay the hard-earned money to come and watch them and they throw in performances like that, we need to have that fight, the desire and have that determination to give the fans something to cheer about
“We’re all in this together. I’m not just throwing blame at the players and us as staff as well. We need to give everything we’ve got to make the fans proud and we’ve shown that we’ve done that.”
Watch John’s full interview on Silkmen TV by clicking here.
