NPL Division One East
Brett Agnew is seeing blue skies appear over Bridlington Town’s injury crisis.
It has never rained it has poured at Bridlington in the past ten weeks as players have been piling into the treatment room.
Results have been affected but Agnew hopes the worst is over.
“We had eight first team players out injured at one point and we had four out of them out for over seven weeks,” Agnew told Non League Yorkshire.
“Those were our best players – the likes of Pete Davidson, Matty Dixon, Will Annan and people like that.
“We regularly missed Danny Earl on a Tuesday night because of his work commitments and he’s perfect person to drive us on with his pace and his directness.
“Any defence would be frightened of him.
“We had Jack Bulless got injured and then Lamps (Joe Lamplough) got injured and then I had to start playing.
“Nathan Hotte was then struggling with injury and it was one thing after another.
“We ended up turning up with two substitutes for about six weeks and had play people in positions they’re not used to.
“That upsets your team flow so it was really difficult.
“Now we have a lot of the players back and (at Ossett) we looked a real unit and for large spells of the (Marske) game we looked a solid and compact unit.”
The timing of the players returning is perfect as Brid head into a run of big fixtures with teams around them such as Pickering Town, Lincoln United, Pontefract Collieries, Tadcaster Albion and Hebburn Town.
“December and January are really important months for us,” Agnew said.
“We’re playing a lot of the teams around about us, sprinkled with a couple of teams from the middle to top half.
“We need to really lay a stamp down to say we’re better than where we are.
“If we can get a run of winning two or three games it puts us into a good position.
“But it means nothing if you keep saying you’re getting your best squad back and you’re still not (getting results).
“I’m hopeful and if we can, we need to try and add a couple of players.
“That’s for strength-in-depth but it would be great if we can get a decent signing in through the gates.
“Maybe a striker or midfielder who knows this league.”
Agnew saw some green shoots of recovery in the goal-less draw at Ossett United and the loss to Marske United last Tuesday.
“We definitely gave a good account of ourselves,” he said.
“It was never a 5-0 game.
“They scored early on – it was maybe a defensive mistake but they passed the ball well through the lines and took the goal well.
“We were on top after that for about 15 minutes.
“They had large spells with the ball and there was a bit of navivety from us by not seeing the half out and they’ve scored two minutes before half-time which killed it for us.
“We went to head-to-head with them in the second half and we had a couple of chances.
“Decision making in the final third let us down and the last ten minutes was down to naivety again and lapses in concentration which gave them three goals.
“It was so frustrating because we had pushed them and pushed them and then in the last ten minutes we have conceded three goals.
“But taking points off Marske is a luxury, it is the teams around the bottom that we need to be focussing on.
Brid visit Dunston on Saturday.