Marshall disgusted by Badgers beating

BRETT MARSHALL has expressed his disgust with the performance of his players in Retford United's humiliating 5-1 defeat to Thackley in the Northern Counties East League Cup on Tuesday night.

The Badgers crashed out of the competition in what was their heaviest defeat of the season, with several regular first-team starters absent and a delay in arriving at the venue the reasons for such an uncharacteristic display.

United were 3-0 down inside 15 minutes, before Adam Scott's 25th minute consolation began and ended the Retford response. Thackley's Nicky Matthews bagged his second just before the interval before Liam Moore rounded things off in the 70th minute.

"I don't want to make any excuses because Thackley thoroughly deserved their victory and were the better side on the night," admitted Marshall.

"However, we had four regular first-team players missing, we didn't arrive at the ground until 7.30pm and then kicked-off at 7.55pm with no warm-up. The match was then over inside 15 minutes.

"I was absolutely disgusted with our performance. At one point I thought we might even get back into it after 25 minutes, but I got ahead of myself. The players just didn't want to be there and you could see that in their play."

Marshall was missing his two top-goalscorers, Carl Haslam and Warren Hatfield, through a cup-tying and work commitments respectively.

The former Southwell City chief expects to have a full compliment of players to choose from for Saturday's match with Long Eaton United (3pm).

Although Marshall has made it very clear that those who performed so poorly on Tuesday evening will find their places in the side no longer guaranteed, with changes more than likely ahead of a match the manager is reasonably confident of winning.

"Everyone who played against Thackley must consider whether they will keep their shirt for the Long Eaton match," said Marshall.

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