Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ANGRY BAXTER WON’T ACCEPT ANOTHER FAIL
CRUSADERS boss Stephen Baxter has warned his wounded players there’ll be no hiding place in Saturday’s derby duel with Cliftonville.
The Shore Road men are seeking a response after being hauled over the coals by their boss following Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to 10-man Coleraine at Seaview.
A Bann bashing was a bolt from the blue for the Crues who had bowled over Ballymena United (4-1) and Warrenpoint Town
(5-0) in their opening two league fixtures.
The straight talking Baxter branded his team’s display “clueless” and claimed some of his under performing stars had “swanned about like prima donnas”.
The Crues chief (above) is backing his squad to hit back, but knows a weekend date with fierce rivals Cliftonville at Solitude represents another acid test.
He said: “A North Belfast derby is always a humdinger and this will be no different. Saturday was not a good day for us and we were poor, but we will work it out.
“We have a lot of very good players in our changing room, boys who have been there, done it and taken all the accolades for it, but you can’t afford to lose your hunger in football.
“The day and hour you lose your hunger, you’re in trouble and we’ll see what the response is this weekend. It’ll need to go up a couple of gears.”
While Baxter took no prisoners in his post match comments, he’s ready to put a collective arm around his players this week.
The longserving boss, who narrowly missed out on a third successive league title when Linfield pipped him at the line last season, said: “While I was frustrated by certain things, by Tuesday night I’ll fall in love with them all again and we’ll build it up again.
“I have just asked them to reflect on Saturday and think it through. We’ll work it all out on the training park and get a bit of urgency back into our game.
“This team looked fabulous in the first two games. It was Rolls Royce type stuff, but on Saturday we were poor. You can’t start lacklustre and think you can go up the gears when you want.
“If we lose 2-1 but played well, hit the crossbar a couple of times and had a lot of possession, I’d say ‘it was a good effort and we narrowly lost out’, but we didn’t.
“We didn’t do what Crusaders normally do and if you don’t match the work commitment of your opponent, you won’t win football matches.
“This is a very competitive league with a lot of good teams and no one has a divine right to win football matches.”
Crusaders are hopeful captain Colin Coates, who missed Saturday’s defeat to Coleraine with a hamstring strain, may be back in contention for the trip to Solitude.