Belper boss Palmer will change system against better sides after Nuneaton drubbing

Unfortunately for him this was not the case as his side were beaten by Nuneaton rather convincingly with the final score 6-1.

After game he seemed disappointed, however he knew that his side did face a tough task when they lined up against a side who are currently two divisions above them.

And he knows that his players can and will perform better than they did.

“To be fair, Nuneaton are a full-time side, I was hoping that we would give a better account of ourselves,” he said.

“I was disappointed with the midfield, they lacked a bit of shape and a bit of appetite to go and compete, we wanted to play but when they had the ball we didn’t go and match them up and because of that we were not very effective in the first half.

“Some of the goals that we did concede tonight were very poor goals, I’m not stupid, I know that these are areas that need to be worked on and I will make sure that they begin to improve.”

Palmer’s team did fare better in the second half, with only one of the six goals they conceded coming this half, Palmer believes this was down to the changes that he made.

“I changed this system second half but by then the game was already lost, but at the same time, I could have taken off players a lot earlier than I did but that wouldn’t have helped the cause because pre-season is about getting fitness.

“I just felt that we should change the system a bit, be more compact in midfield, obviously this message was given to the players in the first half however they didn’t seem to want to do what I wanted them to do.

“We played more of a diamond in midfield, so that we could keep the ball better, but I knew that the game was already lost and at this stage it was about getting the players as much fitness as I possibly could.”

Despite the result, Palmer still sees a number of positives in his team’s performance and will still gain knowledge about his team from the game.

“I won’t beat myself up because, I know that there are still certain players to come back and get fit and hopefully they will be back by Saturday which hopefully help us see improvement.

“The only thing I can say is that I have learnt that against better sides I will have to change my system and we can’t play them as we would every other team in our league.”