Rowe’s booster
MACCLESFIELD Town assistant manager Steve Watson reckons the return of Danny Rowe will provide a huge boost for the club.
Rowe has been missing recently for the Silkmen, with John Askey’s men finding things difficult in his absence.
They were beaten 2-1 at home to strugglers Guiseley on Saturday, and now face North Ferriby away at the weekend having seen Tuesday’s trip to Eastleigh postponed.
It was unlikely Rowe would have been back in time for that game, but Watson is hoping he is back in the squad as soon as possible.
“I’m not sure if he would have been fit enough to be back in the team for Tuesday,” said Watson. “We’ll just have to monitor him a day at a time. He’s got a hip injury but when he is fit he’ll be back in the squad.”
Macclesfield’s defeat to Guiseley at the Moss Rose on Saturday came after Michael Rankine got two goals for the visitors, cancelling out Chris Holroyd’s strike for the hosts.
Watson was extremely disappointed with how things played out, and has stressed how important it is that they bounce back.
“To say it was a frustrating afternoon would be an understatement. I was really disappointed in a lot of aspects,” he said.
“We’d been on a good run of games, we’d identified the next few games to pick up points and we handed them two goals and weren’t good enough on the ball either.
“We didn’t play it quick enough, we didn’t get beyond them with the exception of Chris Holroyd, which obviously wasn’t how we’d planned it out.
“We had a couple of good chances in the first half, certainly the two headers that we had, but overall we didn’t create enough and we didn’t move the ball enough.”
Macc conceded two penalties in the match, with Rankine converting the first, before slotting home the rebound on the second after it was initially saved.
Watson was frustrated with the defensive efforts on display, and felt they gifted Guiseley opportunities.
“When we gave the first penalty away we scored quite quickly afterwards, and then when it got to half-time we knew we needed to be on the front foot from the off, but again we gave them something to hang onto in the second half,” he said.
“It’s hard to break a team down when you’ve given them two leads, but when we’re at home we need to be the team who’s on the front foot and grab it by the scruff of the neck, and we didn’t do that.”