By Brian Bennett
It’s rapidly approaching four months since Nick Gray took over the managerial position at Ashington and appointed Liam McIvor as his assistant.
And with a blank Saturday after the Colliers’ scheduled league clash away to Bishop Auckland was postponed due to a frozen pitch, Gray took time out to reflect on his time so far in the post and talked to press officer Brian Bennett about the ups and downs:
“Football changes all the time. The most difficult thing for me is that we have a good set of lads here yet we are in a position in the league table which we don’t want to be in. Obviously there are reasons for that and you try and bring players in but it’s very difficult during the season so recruitment has proved to be a bit difficult. However we have added a few players and the key thing is that they will improve the squad. The job is slightly more difficult than I thought but it’s something which I like – hitting things head on – and I think we’ve seen signs of improvement. We’ve got to start looking up the table and we need to be better in the second half of the season and look to get some consistency.”
“Losing defender Paddy Almond last week – who joined Blyth Spartans – was a blow. I wished him all the best but there was nothing we could do about it with one of the reasons he left being that Blyth are in the league above. I recently signed Scott Lowery and we brought him in because the defence was an area where we needed to improve and there wasn’t a lot of competition. Scott came in and I thought he was excellent against Dunston whilst I also thought Ben Williams had a really good game and the two complimented each other. In fact the whole back four complimented each other plus goalkeeper Dan Staples.”
“We have got to be wary that the squad now consists of 18 players because I thought we had too many with 21/22 but if someone becomes available that we think would improve the squad then we’d be interested in them – like Ryan Donaldson who was available and who we signed last week from Blyth Spartans. Bailey Geliher is also back fit and training. We haven’t got a lot of competition up front so to have him will be a plus for us.”