New Avenue for FC?

Tony Howard

22/11/2007

FC UNITED manager Karl Marginson is threatening to wield the axe as his squad prepare for a vital UniBond First Division North promotion clash.

The reds take on second-placed Bradford Park Avenue at Gigg Lane this weekend and Margy says the time may have come to shake things up after a woeful showing at Bamber Bridge saw them lose 3-0 on Saturday.

Third-placed United were outclassed at Ironbridge leaving Marginson to question the strength of his players.

Margy said: “I’ve said all along that I will stick by them for as long as we can afford to, but the time may be coming when we may need to look at that.

“We need to be keeping clean sheets, but we just haven’t been good enough at the back for some time now and I want to sort that out as soon as possible. It may mean new faces or at the very least, changes.

“We need to ask, ‘have we got the personnel to do it?

“And at the moment I don’t think we have.”

New boy Colin Bell partnered Rob Nugent at the centre of defence on Saturday, but they simply didn’t gel.

FC had previously beaten Brig 5-0 in the Presidents Cup, but it was a completely different story on Saturday.

Margy said: “They put a totally different team out today and were a lot stronger than the game we won 5-0.

“Individual errors cost us dear once again and we gifted them the first goal thanks to a mistake by Sam Ashton.

“They were a big strong outfit, but we should be addressing that and we should be able to adapt to that kind of opposition.

“We just didn’t manage it and that needs to be looked at.

“We’ve got a lot of good footballers but they’ve got to be prepared to do the dirty work too.”

United were on the receiving end of a 5-0 hammering by Bradford in the FA Trophy earlier in the season after taking the Yorkshire side to a replay.

The reds will be hoping to do what Bamber Bridge did to them by delivering a bit of payback.

Margy said: “We need to come back and show some fight against Bradford.

“Especially as they gave us a hiding in the FA Trophy.

“When things are going against you, you’ve got to go out there and be prepared to get stuck in and show some fight.”

Saturday’s game will give a decent indication of how things will shake up at the end of the season.

One team is promoted up to the UniBond Premier Division and four more must play-off for the other place.

Margy added: “There’s a long way to go and I still think we will be there or there abouts at the end of the season.”

The game against Bradford at Gigg Lane kicks off at 3pm.