By Brian Bennett

Ashington’s assistant manager Liam McIvor said that the early red card for ‘keeper Dan Staples in Saturday’s 4-0 home defeat against Liversedge ‘killed the game’ as a contest.

Staples was dismissed by referee Thomas James following an ‘off the ball’ incident and McIvor said: “The sending off killed the game straight away. After three minutes and 18 seconds, everything which you have planned for and have trained for all week goes out of the window. The lads put in a good shift as they do every week but Liversedge have scored four – and we concede easy goals. To be honest since Nick (Gray) and I took over, we’ve yet to see a team score what we would class as being a good goal against us.”

After the red card, Ashington had to reorganise and McIvor added: “Ben Williams volunteered to take over in goal and we spoke about having two banks of four; keeping it compact and keeping it tight for the next half an hour – then two minutes later Liversedge go in front. It was already going to be very difficult for us but now we had a mountain to climb.”

For the start of the second half, Paddy Almond replaced Williams between the posts with McIvor explaining: “We thought that we needed a centre half that could travel forward with the ball and that’s why Paddy took over from Ben. However in my eyes, the 4-0 score line flattered Liversedge. We had two good shouts for penalties but in the end, the defeat was purely down to ourselves and there have been a few home truths said in the dressing room. We’ll train twice this week then prepare for Grimsby Borough away on Saturday.”