"I've never had a start like this" - Kevin Wilkin opens up on Telford challenge

Kevin Wilkin has admitted that Telford’s disappointing start to the season has been one of the most challenging spells of his managerial career.

The Bucks are winless from their first six league games and sit bottom of the league on two points, and have just one win from their last 13 games including the back end of last season.

A seven-game winless run would be the longest since the first season of Wilkin’s tenure, when Telford were already cut adrift at the bottom of the National League North, and Wilkin is desperate to avoid that becoming a reality this afternoon against Scarborough.

“I’ve never had a start to the season like this,” Wilkin conceded. “We’ve not produced the results for all sorts of reasons and look, we all understand the game and how it operates, and there is an expectation level there, and rightly so.

“I know I need to be delivering. I think the lads are giving me everything they’ve got, I’m not questioning that, but we’re coming up short.

“That’s on the physical side of things for one or two of them and a technical element for one or two of them, and then some inexperience as well at times.

“When all of those things happen at a similar time then clearly you’re not going to be as effective in games as you would like to be, but the reality is I haven’t been able to replace the players that we lost over the summer at the level that I needed to.

“There have been injuries to crucial players, and I do believe that if Jordan (Cranston), Charlie (Williams) and Jamie (Meddows) had been available then we would have won some games, or at the very least picked up more points, by now.

“I understand that every club picks up injuries, but when you’re not winning games it can make things more difficult.”

Wilkin also set the record straight on comments he made after Monday’s defeat to Bedford Town, where he said he was ”not making it very easy for the powers above to keep him on board.”

“More than anyone else I put pressure and expectation on myself,” he explained. “That’s why it doesn’t sit comfortably with me when we aren’t winning games, I expect the players to get to and compete at a certain level, and I expect us to get to a certain level results-wise as well, which at the moment I’m not delivering, and I need to carry the can for that, without a doubt.

“I can’t answer for the chairman or the directors, that’s not for me to say, but I know what I expect from myself and what I expect us to be delivering, and at the moment we’re not reaching those levels. That’s a fact.

“I’d imagine the chairman and directors would look at the situation and think something similar, but that’s up for them to say. As a manager you only really know what they’re thinking when you get the phone call to relieve you of your duties.

“I‘ll continue to be honest and work really hard, and if I thought the lads weren’t trying and giving it their all then that would be a problem, but I do think we’re having a good go and look pretty solid for large parts of games.”

Elsewhere at The SEAH Stadium, forward Jaiden White has departed the club after less than a month in Shropshire.