City of Liverpool manager Michael Ellison was left angered by his side’s draw against Kidsgrove Athletic as they squandered a chance to put points on the board.
The Purps performed valiantly against playoff-chasing Leek Town as goals from James Edgar and Tinashe Chakwana were cancelled out by Tim Grice’s brace.
But the City of Liverpool manager berated the performance against Kidsgrove as they had to come from behind to earn a point, as well as, battle a one-man disadvantage after a red card for Danny Murphy.
Ellison had a warning for his players ahead of their derby clash with Bootle this weekend, insisting if they play how they did in midweek they will be on the end of a ‘hiding’.
“Chalk and cheese. They were two different types of games,” he told Off The Park.
“We went away to Leek, which is a fantastic surface, we changed some of the personnel because we wanted to play and we played some good football.
“I think the possession we had against Leek, we should’ve created more opportunities, we created really good situations but that final pass just wasn’t quite there.
“We scored two goals and I feel if you score two goals away from home you should win the game. Defensively, the two goals we conceded were really poor but all in all, when the dusk settles, it’s a tough place to go, very good side and you’d say that’s a good point.
“Then it was the opposite [against Kidsgrove], everything we done well on Saturday, we didn’t do.
“We give them instructions on certain things and they didn’t carry it out on the pitch and we’ve come away with a draw.
“The game should’ve been over in the first half, we’ve had guilt-edged chances again but if you’re not taking your chances at one end and you’re leaving the door open at the other, you’ve got serious problems.
“It’s as poor as we’ve been all season. We had a spell earlier on in the season when we had a lot of injuries, we had lads in the side we didn’t really know, there was a couple of poor games there but that [against Kidsgrove] was as poor as I’ve seen, really bad game.
“Not just us, I thought they were as well. When we played the reverse fixture at their place, I thought it was an excellent game of football, two sides who tried to play the game the right way, intense, I thought we should’ve come away from the game with something but we didn’t, [on Tuesday] it was dreadful, hard to watch.
“I think some of the lads are lucky that we’ve got the injuries we’ve got. When you’ve got injuries it gives lads an opportunity and over the last couple of weeks, some lads haven’t took it.
“I’m the manager I have to take responsibility for that.
“I think what we have to do, we have to be better on Saturday, Bootle are a good side, on a good run of form, know their manager really well, they’ll want to win, there will be a big crowd on but if we perform like we did on Tuesday, we’ll be in for a hiding and that’s what we don’t wanna do.”
[Featured image: City of Liverpool]
