NPL Division One East
Ossett United manager Jas Colliver says the blockbuster Friday night local derby at Liversedge is the perfect chance for his players to make amends and silence the doubters.
Clayborn will be packed for the clash – with over 1000 people likely to attend – and Ossett have two points to prove.
‘Sedge’s 5-0 win at Ingfield is still fresh in people’s minds, as is the humbling 7-1 loss at Cleethorpes Town last Saturday.
Colliver and assistant Mark Ward want a response and the Ossett boss issued a call to arms.
“I’ve asked the lads to reflect on Saturday but also draw a line under it,” Colliver told Non League Yorkshire.
“We’re not going to talk about it, that’s it, it is done and dusted.
“We expect a reaction though.
“People are saying to us ‘look the honeymoon period is well and truly over’.
“We believe we have the players to bounce back and we’ll be even stronger once as we recruit further players into the group.
“But we’ll go there (to Liversedge) and the lads need to prove they are capable of playing in this Division and capable to playing to our expectations.
“They need to step up and react on Friday night.
“There’ll be over 1000 there and people will be looking for us to fail and for me and Wardy to fail.
“We’re going into Liversedge to prove people wrong and to get a reaction from the lads.
“It is kind of a free hit because there’s better teams who have gone to Liversedge and got beat this season.
“We don’t want a heavy defeat but people expect us to go there and get beat.
“We have to have the mindset of ‘with over 1000 watching, there’s no better place to go and dig a result out’.”
Although he has high demands for his side, Colliver does admit his men face an almighty challenge against a Liversedge who have yet to lose in the league at home.
“We know it will be a physical game but I don’t think people give (Liversedge) the credit they deserve,” he said.
“People think it is just the physical aspect they are good at.
“They do that particularly well but they can also do the other side.
“They are a very organised and well-drilled team.
“They have got experienced players and they can manage the game well and we need to match them for all that.
“We know it is going to be tough ask as they have only lost once in the league in two years.
“It is case of us being hard to beat which we definitely weren’t on Saturday, being organised which weren’t on Saturday and being more confident on the ball when in possession.”
Colliver must have run over seven black cats and smashed 21 mirrors in the build-up to the Cleethorpes as it was a calamitous day throughout, never mind just from 3pm.
“Yeah (a disaster) from start to finish,” he said.
“I left my house in good time to get to Cleethorpes and I didn’t arrive there until twenty past two.
“I thought that would get all the bad luck out of the way and we’d get every bounce of the ball and everything would go in our favour.
“It took us nearly three hours to get there as the M18 was closed so it wasn’t perfect preparation.
“We lost two players, one (George Green) on the morning of the game and one (Jack Cowgill) in the warm-up.
“Then we lost a lad after ten minutes as he got clattered by our ‘keeper.
“I thought ‘here we go, it is going from bad to worse’.
“Having said that, we were up against for a good half-hour before we scored with a moment of class from (Aaron) Haswell.
“Seven minutes before half-time I’m thinking ‘we’re up against, it hasn’t been perfect prep and we have had lots injuries, covid but let’s get to half-time and re-group.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen the highlights but it is a blatant error for the second goal.
“Goalkeeper rolls it out, centre-half trips over the ball and they have broke and scored.
“A free header gave them their third just before half-time.
“We had a mountain to climb at half-time and I said to the lads that when we came into the club we said we wanted to play exciting football, front-foot football.
“I said we wanted to win games and we wouldn’t camp in to keep it at 3-1 and we would try and get back into the game.
“There were tired legs, tired bodies – (Nathan) Valentine and (Craig) Hogg haven’t been around for a month and they had to play 90 minutes.
“It took its toll and with 80 minutes on the clock I thought ‘4-1, I’ll take it, let’s back in the car and go home’.
“I could see our lads fading and getting further away from Cleethorpes who were flying.
“We conceded late goals and deserved to lose the game as we were second best all over.
“It wasn’t a performance that reflects what I’m about and what Wardy is about.
“Was it a 7-1? I don’t know. They have scored late on in the game to cement what went from a bad day to a worse day.”
The Ossett boss has been quiet on the recruitment front for a couple of weeks but he intends to bring new faces in over the next two weeks.
“We have a free Saturday the week after and hopefully by then we’ll have got our recruits in because we have bare bones,” he said.
“We probably have 12 bodies available before we start digging into the under 18s.
“We are in the market for players and players who can add real strength to our squad.”