After watching his side slip to a 5-2 defeat against Irlam, Nelson manager Mark Fell described his side as ‘dysfunctional’ with a handful of players needing to ‘grow-up’ and ‘get in the real world’.
It had been a rollercoaster week for the Blues, a wonderful display on Wednesday night over shadowed by an off field issue, and despite a poor display against the Manchester side on Saturday, the Admirals remain top of the table.

“We went from our most complete display to our worst 45 minutes since I’ve been manager here,” said Fell. “No excuses from us, Irlam were a better side and deserved all the points. It’s not been our day, the details weren’t there, we didn’t compete for 2nd phases well, we lacked shape and structure in our play, 1st touches were heavy, the works. It was as if Wednesday took too much out of us and we couldn’t replicate anything like it.”

Fell was described a small fraction of his squad as ‘a disgrace’ following several internal issues during the week. “The long and short of it is I want players who’s sole interest and desire is to progress this club, some have behaved like children and are clearly only interested in a few quid or a night out before the game. Those players won’t play for Nelson, I’ve lads knocking the door down to play for us, it’s not a difficult decision. I will meet the players on Tuesday night at training, we’ll re-iterate expectations again of a Nelson player, make some easy decisions on some and we’ll draw a line under it and move on.”

In squad news, Fell confirmed that Adam Dawson has left the club.