Steve Kittrick: Telford played with fear
AFC Telford United manager Steve Kittrick admitted his team 'played with fear' in today's damaging 1-0 defeat to Conference Premier relegation rivals Alfreton.
Kittrick's side fell behind just before the hour mark against Nicky Law's Reds and the Bucks chief felt his players looked frightened of making mistakes from that point on.
He said: "In the second half once they scored we played with so much fear it was unbelievable.
"In the first half it was always going to be a funny game, and it was always going to be tight.
"Alfreton have got a physically strong side, but you could see that once that goal went in everybody's head was down and you can't get to them.
"You can't ask Ian Sharps and one or two others to want to be the voice of the team all the time.
"They have (all) got to have some guts and have a go at it. They want to win but it just seems to get further and further away.
"They don't play football, they don't relax and pass it like we did, they just want to knock it long and they play with fear.
"It is frustrating and I would struggle to put a positive spin on that last 20 minutes.
"Football is funny. One minute you can be up, the next you are down and I have never been in a position before in my life where I "have lost three games on the bounce before.
"But it is what it is. What we do now is we just go and play. We put a smile on our faces and we go and play and have no fear.
"But the thing is about it: if you are going to go gung-ho like that then you have got to have some structure and a bit of organisation in what you are doing.
"But you could see on Saturday that once we went behind everybody had fear on their face - even Ian Sharps turned round afterwards and said he was knocking silly balls.
"And it runs through the team. It is difficult to put you finger on (why things are going wrong). At half time I thought it was going to be settled by just the one goal and it wasn't pretty.
"They aren't a pretty footballing side and we probably got sucked into their game a little bit. But people have stopped getting on the ball and are knocking it long.
"A lot of them I think they think 'I don't want (the ball) because I don't want to make that mistake".
