Mettam furious as Steelmen are way off the pace in pre-season defeat at Lincoln
Leon Mettam was left fuming with his Corby Town players after they were beaten 2-1 at Lincoln United in their latest pre-season friendly on Saturday.
The Steelmen boss was not a happy man, and felt his side turned in the 'worst 45 minutes' of his eight-month rein to date.
Corby were 2-0 down at the break, and although Lincoln were reduced to 10-men in the second half, the Steelmen couldn't pull things back although they did reduce the arrears with a goal from Theo Braham 10 minutes from time.
"I think you learn a lot about your players in pre-season," Mettam told @corbytownfc.
"You learn a lot about what's going on, and the endeavour and things like that, and how much passion they have got to be at Corby.
"And that was probably the worst 45 minutes I have seen since I took over on Boxing Day.
"The players got told, and some of them need to go and have a look at themselves in the mirror.
"I told them exactly how Lincoln would play, I told them their dangers, and we couldn't string one or two passes together all day.
"The worst part about it for me was, all the experience that we have got out there, players who have played at good levels, they were the ones who were the worst."
And he added: "We have had that chat, and I don't mind players being at six, seven or eight out of 10 every week, but I can't have seven or eight of them being at three and four.
"For a large part of that game, we weren't at the races.
"Lincoln went down to 10 men and you couldn't tell which team had 10 in all fairness, they dealt with us well.
"In the last half hour we kept the ball off them as we should have done as soon as they went down to 10, but again we concede from two set-pieces, a wide free-kick and a corner.
"So we have a lot to work on.
"I am not defending anyone, but there were one or two positive performances from a couple of lads we needed to have a look at, and that's the only pleasing thing to come out of the day.
"We are lucky it's pre-season, because that could have been a league game and we would have come away with nothing."
Corby have their first home pre-season game on Saturday when they entertain next door neighbours Stewarts & Lloyds at Steel Park (ko 3pm).