Smith ready to give hard word

Boss Rob Smith insists he is ready to make the necessary “harsh decisions” to mould his AFC Telford United squad for another promotion challenge.

Smith is turning his attention to the future after seeing their Blue Square North play-off hopes go up in smoke with a 4-0 aggregate defeat to Barrow.

The Telford chief will leave it until after the club’s annual presentation evening on Saturday to announce his retained list.

But he will sit down with trusted assistant Larry Chambers this week to begin discussions on who they want to keep and who is facing the chop.

The duo have already proved they will not shy away from making big decisions - as was shown by their releasing top scorer Steve Foster at the end of last season just days after securing promotion from the UniBond League.

“We want to get the presentation evening out of the way on Saturday and then we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” said Smith.

“Me and Larry have got to sit down and we genuinely haven’t talked about it yet because we wanted to get the play-offs out of the way.

“We’ll talk about who we want to retain and then we’ll meet the players and do it that way.

“There’s going to be some harsh decisions ahead but there’s no point sitting still, we’ve got to get better. We’ve come second in the league, which means we’re not good enough.”

He has had to wait until he knew for sure in which league the Bucks would be playing next season, but is now ready to intensify his efforts.

“We couldn’t talk to anybody about next year and we couldn’t talk to new players either because we didn’t know where we were going to be, so that’s hindered us,” he added.

“We do now, though, and - although the players can switch off for a little bit - for me and Larry it’s a very busy month.

l There are still a few tickets (£22.50) available for Saturday’s presentation evening. For more information, call the club office on 01952-640064.