Maidstone United boss Harry Wheeler was a frustrated figure after his side slipped to second from bottom of the National League after a fumble from debutant keeper Ross Worner gifted Barrow the only goal of the game at Holker Street.
Speaking to Stones TV after the game, Wheeler admitted, “Hurts and hurts a lot. The players could give no more; their attitude was right, and their application was right – we knew that Barrow were on a good run and it’s always a tough place to go.”
“We seemed to be getting punished for individual mistakes at the minute and it’s a different player every time. Today it was the keeper who was absolutely brilliant and didn’t deserve that. But it’s just that whenever someone makes one, we’re punished and that’s how it’s going. We’ve just got to stick together.”
“He’s been brilliant for us but he’s been punished and doesn’t deserve that one and I know that we don’t deserve that one but that’s three League losses in a row now and in every one we’ve been punished for a mistake that someone’s made.”
“If it’s an individual error, we’ve changed that personnel wise and brought in someone else, but today it’s been one of our best players.”
“Hurts a lot for them and it hurts a lot for us and we know how big this next League game (home to Gateshead on December 22nd) is going to be.”
“We’ve got a break from it next weekend, probably not the worst thing as we can use next week to get the boys back up again.”
Wheeler was asked about the eight changes he made going into the game.
He replied, “We made changes because we needed to, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll make changes again, we know that there has to be a structure to it and if we play like we did we’ll get the results,” shrugging the Stones boss added. “It was a hard one today!”
“At the moment things aren’t going for us and this month is massive for us – this game does not define the month or our club, there’s so many points to play for, so we’ve just got to pick ourselves up, take it on the chin and stick together.”