Simpson blasts County character

Simpson made no excuses for his side’s woeful showing against Morecambe and admitted they were totally outclassed.

When it was suggested to him, that he could take some positives from the ‘terrific spirit’ his side showed towards the end of the game he responded:

”I have to disagree with you, I don’t think they’ve shown any spirit throughout the entire 90 minutes. We were spiritless, characterless and we deserved nothing out the game, the goals we gave away were absolutely diabolical.

”Shuker is 5 foot 7 at best and he’s standing on his tip-toes and he wins the header in the box. We didn’t expect this from them, in the past few weeks we’ve had some character and spirit about us in the last few weeks both in training and in the games.

”There’s no explanation for it, but it’s easy for them because they can hide behind me getting abused. I just wonder sometimes whether some of these players really care about the job and whether they realise what a dog fight we’re in and what we have to do to get out of it

”The most basic thing in football is to work hard, even more basic than passing a ball, and we haven’t worked hard enough today. We’ve allowed them to coast through a game, at home, in front of our own supporters.”

Simpson went on to reveal that his team would be three players lighter by this time tomorrow as leading goal-scorer George Donnelly returns to Plymouth and Tom Aldred and Anthony Pulis will also now depart the club.

”The likelihood is that all three players will leave tonight. Plymouth have accepted a bid from a conference club. We would love to keep all of them but the fact is we can’t offer anything to Plymouth, certainly not in terms of wages.