Coventry City manager Andy Thorn has told his players in no uncertain terms that Saturday's performance at Nuneaton was not good enough.
The blunt attack was highly visible during the game at Nuneaton, but Thorn did select a team that had few players considered as first team players, giving trialists, new faces and youngsters the opportunity to shine. Very few of them took the proffered chance much to Thorn's annoyance.
Thorn told the CT's Andy Turner: “You are looking for players to force their way into first-team recognition and there was no-one there that really did that.
“There are probably one or two from Saturday who will start in the first team on the opening day of the season. Everyone else was having a trial, kids or playing their first game of the pre-season and trying to impress, but I didn’t see anything to impress me, which was the object of the exercise.
“I know what my team will be at the start of the season but this was a great opportunity for people to put themselves into the reckoning.
"I thought there might be one or two who would step up to the plate and force me to change my first-team plans, so that’s the most disappointing thing because no-one made a name for themselves at Nuneaton, where there is a bit of local pride at stake.
“Sometimes you have games like that and it brings a lot of people back down to earth. I don’t care whether it is pre-season or not, performances like that are not acceptable and not the standards I want.
“There were eight or nine boys who weren’t involved on Saturday and who will be in and around the first team. They have done their fitness work and they will all play at Wrexham on Tuesday when it will be a good opportunity for people to stake a claim.
“That was what I wanted the lads to do at Nuneaton and in the end the fans had more enjoyment from kicking a beach ball about than watching the game.
“I sat there with Richard Shaw and Lee Carsley and said we’re not going through what we went through last year again, and at times it wasn’t even as good as that, but they’ve been told that if they want to play for this football club then those standards aren’t good enough.
"They need to be upped if they want to force their way into the first team picture they need to be producing in games like that.”
“These boys have got a point to prove now and they’ll probably get another opportunity at Accrington Stanley at the weekend because that was way off what I expected.
“I was pleased with William Edjenguele and he just needs some game time. It was Reece Brown and Callum Ball’s first games, and it was good to get Cody McDonald back out on the pitch for the first time as well.”