Archived News from September 2005
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MACKENZIE: PALMER RUINED A GOOD TEAM
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'PALMER RUINED A GOOD TEAM'
Evening Post, 27 September 2005 Former Stags midfielder Neil MacKenzie is not surprised to see Mansfield in the bottom two. And the Macclesfield star is disappointed he won't be playing against them tonight. The 29-year-old midfielder left Field Mill under a cloud following falling out with ex-boss Carlton Palmer, who left the job earlier this month. And MacKenzie has not changed his mind about the man who walked out of the Stags hot-seat earlier this month. "He dismantled what was a good team at Field Mill and I am not surprised to see them where they are," said Mackenzie. "It is a shame. "I had a good time there and we had a lot of good players in the squad but they have mostly gone now. "I feel sorry for the fans. They probably deserve to be in the division above." MacKenzie scored the winner for the Silkmen when they caused a shock by beating Forest 3-2 in the first round of the Carling Cup. But he will miss tonight's game with a knee injury he suffered in a tackle with former Stags team-mate Jamie Clarke, who is now playing for Rochdale. He said: "I am having an injection this week but the game has just come a bit too early for me. "It's a shame, I would have loved to play. "But we have got ourselves at the wrong end of the table so it is going to be a big game for both sides." ----------- Win could push caretaker's claims CHAD website, 26 September 2005 PETER Shirtliff knows he needs a win at Macclesfield Town tomorrow night to push his own claims to be the new Mansfield Town manager. Chairman Keith Haslam has said he will sit down and start sifting through all the applications for the post on Wednesday. By then Shirtliff and his players will have had a golden chance to wipe away the memories of Saturday's miserable 3-2 home defeat by Wycombe Wanderers. The Silkmen sit just two places and three points above a Stags side that has won only one of their first 10 games. Shirtliff said: "It is too early to be talking about relegation battles. "But there are 10 games gone and the league doesn't lie. The teams that are currently down there deserve to be there as they have not accumulated enough points. "Tomorrow is a great chance for us to bounce back and I am looking for a bit of character. "Macclesfield are under more pressure than us as they are expected to win at home against a team below them. "Our players must stand up and be counted and put on a good show. "We know we are better than our position suggests, but the players have to go out there and prove that. "I want to see some resilience and some competitive aggression without being silly and getting sent off. They must show desire to get us out of the position we are in." Shirtliff said he didn't feel wholesale surgery on the side was necessary but felt some tweaking needed to be done - difficult when you are not full time manager and two places from the bottom. "It is a case of me making a few enquiries and seeing if I can then interest the chairman. I hope something will come off this week," he said. "We need to consider both the short term and the long. But it is not easy finding the right player. We need someone with experience who can organise out there, but everyone else is looking for that same player." He added: "We just have to start defending better. I was tearing my hair out on Saturday. "We gave three cheap goals away. I did take some pleasure out of our econd half performance, but coming back from 3-0 down is a tall order. "It is probably easier to play 3-0 down when there is no expectancy level and you can go all out for it. "You may as well lose 4-0 as 3-0. In the second half we were doing things much more naturally. I want that sort of commitment and enthusiasm when it's 0-0." |
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