AFC Fylde boss wants his players to become much more streetwise

The Coasters suffered their first defeat of the National League North season in midweek, going down 2-0 at the Tameside Stadium.

A goal in each half gave the home side victory on an evening when Fylde also lost David Perkins to a straight red card moments after going behind to Matty Waters’ effort.

“It gives the referee a decision,” Bentley said of the reaction to Perkins’ challenge on Sam Walker.

“I’ve just had a good conversation with the referee. Before their first goal we’ve had an absolute forearm smash against Luke Conlan’s nose.

“From my point of view, I think we’re too nice. We haven’t got the dark arts, we’re too quick to get up and get on with the play.

“If we stay down and make a bit of a meal of it, get round the referee, suddenly he’s got a decision to make there.

“That’s one criticism I have, that we’re a little bit nice.

“We haven’t got the dark arts to a fine art. There will be games in which we’re going to need to do that.

“It could be a bad tackle. I haven’t it seen it back. It was a long way away from the dugout.

“The referee has made a decision, whether it is or it isn’t, it’s done and we can’t do anything about that and it suddenly becomes really hard.”

Perkins’ dismissal left the Coasters up against it, a task that wasn’t made any easier when Darren Stephenson doubled the home side’s advantage early in the second half.

Despite being a man down for more than half the game, the Coasters were still able to fashion goalscoring opportunities.

So too did the hosts, leaving Bentley irritated by some of his side’s defending and their habit of giving away cheap free-kicks.

He said: “Credit to the 10 that were still on. We kept plugging away, kept playing our stuff, we still threatened.

“We still knew we would create opportunities and we came in at 1-0 at half-time.

“You’ve got to stay in the game, stay on top, but another criticism is we gave too many fouls away, silly fouls.

“Straight away, from the kick-off, we gave them a foul and a little opportunity to load the box.

“It was all hands to the pump to keep it out and we have got to make sure that we’re better at that.

“The killer obviously is the second goal. A good bit of play from them, poor play by us defensively.

“I can’t label that at us because we’ve been quite solid, so 2-0 down and then it’s caution to the wind – make a couple of changes, change the shape, keep trying to do what you do going forward.

“We’ve created opportunities and we should have scored at least one goal but it wasn’t to be.”

Fylde are without a Saturday fixture for the second week running due to positive Covid-19 tests. This time it is York City self-isolating.

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