Reds backline must buck up their ideas, raps Gray
FUMING Barry Gray is rapidly running out of patience and has warned his under-achievers to shape up or ship out.
The Cliftonville boss has pointed an accusing finger at his dithering defenders, who had conceded 15 goals in their 11 Danske Bank Premiership games before shipping another four in the County Antrim Shield defeat by north Belfast rivals Crusaders in midweek.
With a tough league showdown with Coleraine at the Ballycastle Road Showgrounds looming tomorrow, Gray is demanding an improvement — or else he’ll be forced to bring in players who will defend properly.
He believes any team that scores three goals at Seaview should be coming away with a win.
“At this moment in time, I don’t think there can be too many of our defensive players happy with their performance,” he states. “It appears it’s not fashionable, as far as we are concerned, to defend, be ugly, solid, manage games and the people around you.
“You look at other teams — Crusaders, Linfield or Glenavon — they all do the ugly side of it.
“It’s fact, as our results would suggest. We are just not performing, we are nowhere near it.”
Gray insists his hand will be forced in terms of changing personnel if things don’t change.
He adds: “We can make all the excuses we like, but if you ask me if we are capable of keeping a clean sheet at Coleraine on Saturday, I don’t think there is one person on his planet that would whole-heartedly say yes.
“So you have ask serious questions why that is. We have worked and will continue to work with what we’ve got, but it’s just not working. We can’t afford to continue at this rate. We are piling more and more pressure on ourselves in every game.
“Over the course of the next four to six weeks, if we don’t think we can get the players to the standards we need, then we’ve got to be honest and say it’s not working and we’ll look for replacements.
“So we are firing a warning shot to all our defensive players. If change is needed, it’s something we must consider over the coming weeks.”
Gray admits he did have one shining light in the wake of the Shield defeat — the performance of young Ross Lavery (below).
“Ross was thrown in at left back by force because Levi (Ives) was injured,” adds Gray.
“He was solid and comfortable. That was a big positive for us, but outside of that we were struggling to take anything from the defensive side of our game.
“It’s important we leave all our hard feelings at Seaview. Once again we have conceded late on, which has cost us.
“We must now focus on Coleraine. We are struggling with injuries at the minute, but every manager can talk that talk. I’m not going to make excuses. We need a performance.
“For us to win the game, we must somehow find a way of keeping a clean sheet, which is a massive challenge. We know it’s going to be tough.
“We know if we get three points it could possibly take us up into third or fourth place and, regardless of how things went in midweek, that’s where we need to be.
“I’m not being negative. I was totally disgusted by our performance at Seaview, but we have the ability in our tank to beat Coleraine and it will be up to me to prepare and make sure the team are mentally ready.”