Neil Young says teams are now ‘far more’ worried than Marine – and believes Matlock Town will buoyed by the new manager bounce this weekend.
The Gladiators appointed Adam Yates and Mark Atkins after Martin Carruthers resigned as manager. Matlock have lost four of their last six, winning once but suffered a 5-1 defeat against Whitby Town which left them outside the bottom four – although they sit 13 points clear.
With the change in the dugout this week, Young believes Matlock will be a greater threat as they play without freedom. Matlock lost talisman Jonathan Margetts to National League North side King’s Lynn, who remains one of the top goalscorers in the division, and have since plummeted down the table.
Young told Off The Park: “I’m happy with the level of performances. Since the defeat against Hyde, bringing Freddie, Matty, Jack, John and Bobby in, we’ve had that consistent run of performances.
“Even when we’ve lost against Radcliffe and Macc, the performances have been consistent, I know what I’m getting and if you ask any manager, if you know what level of performance you’re getting out of the team, you’re not going to win every game but I do think we’ve learned from them games and improved again.
“We’ve got to keep going, we’ve got to keep that momentum going, we know that we don’t look too far ahead – it’s tight at the top. We treat every game the same, this weekend it’s Matlock, we have to make sure we come out on top.”
He added: “When you lose your centre-forward, you don’t realise the difference it can make. We brought one in, in Bobby, but they’ve got a manager bounce – two club legends – they’ll be going in there, the confidence issues they had had will go.
“They’ll play with no fear, they’re not going down or up, they can play with freedom and that, under a new manager, means they play freely.
“For us, it’s very difficult to analyse because we don’t know what way they’ll play but we’ll wait and see – we’ll be prepared for whatever. We’ve come away from over-analysing opposition because I’m now in a position where teams have to worry far more about us.
“I put that in the hands of my team, they’re doing well and bringing a consistent level of performance which as a manager is all you can ask.”
