July 15th 2024
RONNIE Sharp's second tenure at Station Park may only be just over a month old but the boss was left in no doubt that yesterday's display against Buckie Thistle was the worst he has seen in that time. County found themselves 7-0 down before battling back to add three goals of their own but the damage had already been done by the slick Jags, who added an eighth injury time to rub further salt into the gaping Nairn wounds. "It was a very poor performance from start to finish, apart from the last 20 minutes," Sharp stated. "It is the worst we have played in the short space of time I have been in the job – we had no aggression and no confidence in ourselves." "Mikie Rae (goalkeeping coach) said it at half time when he said no one was willing to take responsibility on the park. That is the major thing. You have to take responsibility for your own performance and none of the boys did that for the first 60 minutes or so." "It was not until we changed it about a little and swapped some players around that we started to play the way we know we can. We put Paul Macleod into centre half and that made a big difference. Jason Morganti came on in the middle and that strengthened us up and Wayne (Mackintosh) moving further forward put them under pressure. But before that, we did not do anything and it was a very poor performance but the boys know that." Sharp has seen his side ship goals in the opening 10 minutes of four of the seven games he has taken charge of. He added: "That is completely down to concentration and taking responsibility on the park." "We have to be responsible enough to do our own jobs but we are not doing it. The start of every game is the same and before we know it, we are one down." "We are maybe trying to play too much and the second and third goals were virtually the same in terms of where they came from. The second one, we gave away a silly free kick which we did not have to and it led to a header at the back post which was again down to taking responsibility with regards to picking up – the boy got free and had an easy header." "For the third one, we gave the ball away on the halfway line and that was down to too many passes. Yes, we like to try to play football but we played too many passes." Sharp only had two pre-season games to find his first choice eleven and took on a friendly against Inverness CT last Tuesday to also give players the opportunity to stake a claim for a starting position. The manager revealed: "We are still trying to find our best team and that is the problem at the moment. We are trying to find a way of playing that suits us. We have playing a certain system but maybe we need to tweak it a little and go a bit more direct in certain games." "Gary Kerr was excellent up front all day. We need to get closer to him though to play off him. It was also pleasing that we showed a bit of fight and it was good for Jason Morganti to get a goal." "There is a long way to go though and we are still trying to find our feet as a team. Most clubs have five or six pre-season games to find their best team – I had two. We are still playing catch up at the moment and we also have players coming off with little knocks, like Jamie Mackay did today with a tweaked hamstring." Graeme Macleod
