Whitby Town boss Nathan Haslam eyes strong finish to campaign ahead of home clash with NPL Premier Division leaders Radcliffe

The Seasiders fell to a disappointing defeat on the road at Stafford Rangers last weekend as they were unable to muster a response to Kaiman Anderson's early opener at the Sir Stan Robinson Stadium, writes Liam Ryder.

At one point, the 2023/24 season showed plenty of promise for Town who already made history by reaching the First Round of the Emirates FA Cup for the first time in 20 years, while a play-off push remained a realistic possibility.

But now with nothing but pride to play for in the league, boss Haslam is looking for his players to end the campaign in positive fashion.

Haslam told The Whitby Gazette: "I need to see more from my lads in the final weeks of the season if I’m being honest.

"There are players there who have been good in parts of the season, there are players who are not doing good enough now towards the end of the season, but that’s what football is.

"You can’t pick and choose when you want to play well, you’ve got to be consistent right the way through.

"For me, they are playing for contracts and while they might have offers elsewhere, there are a lot of footballers on that pitch who need to do a lot more and I’ve told them that.

"They’re all on trial for the next four games. We’ve got a cup final to look forward but we need to be a lot better in the remaining league games."

The upcoming test against Radcliffe couldn't be more difficult, with the visitors requiring just a point to secure the Pitching In Northern Premier League Premier Division title.

Haslam highlighted the importance of his squad giving a good account of themselves, referring to the reverse fixture, which saw the Seasiders win 1-0, as motivation.

"They’ve got the best attacking force in the league so we’re going to have our work cut out, but their approach may give us space to work with as well," Haslam added.

"The task is can we do the double over them? We got pretty much everything spot on tactically back in November and we'll need everyone on the same page again if we are going to have a chance on Saturday.

Reflecting further on the last outing against Stafford, Haslam looked back at where it all went wrong against a side fighting for their lives at the wrong end of the table.

Yet again, missed chances came back to bite the Blues, who could easily have been a couple of goals up early on.

"We had two brilliant chances in the opening ten minutes, and not converted them," he added.

"They had one chance, from our mistake, and their lad was clinical. That was the only real chance they had in the game and it’s won it for them.

"We were lacking ideas and I don’t want to keep making excuses for the boys, but it was difficult. We just couldn’t find a way to break down that Stafford line and that’s down to us not being good enough in the final third."