Salford City Manager, Neil Wood, called his side ‘physically and mentally weak’ following their 2-0 home defeat to local rivals Stockport County on Saturday.

The Ammies suffered yet another home defeat, with Paddy Madden and Kyle Wootton scoring the goals that took all three points back to Stockport with The Hatters.

After the game, Salford Manager Neil Wood gave his thoughts. He said: “Disappointing, very disappointing. Two really poor naive goals to concede.”

After Stockport’s first goal, Salford had a great period and looked set to grow back into the game – but failed to convert their chances. In his response, the Manager said: “[We] needed to be better with our shots, not getting them on target, needed to be better at putting crosses in… so yeah, disappointing.”

Speaking on the importance of Stockport’s first goal, which came just before half-time, he said: “It’s big because the first-half was what a derby game was gonna be. There wasn’t much quality, it was very back and forth, it was fight for the second balls, it was battle it out.

…it was a really soft goal to concede, bad positioning.”

Salford really struggled to make chances in the game, rarely looking threatening from set pieces, whereas Stockport looked fantastic defensively. Neil said: “As soon as Stockport come here and score they’ve got a back five, you know what’s coming, they’re gonna shut the game down.”

Neil Wood in his post-match press conference after 2-0 home loss to Stockport County. Image credit – Screenshot from YouTube video. Channel – Salford City FC.

This defeat marked Salford’s fifth consecutive home league game without a win, a concerning thought for the manager: “We need to find a way of getting some home form, we know teams are coming here – like you see today ready to go to a back five, ready to defend and hopefully catch us on the counter. We know that’s coming, we need to be better at defending, we need to keep it at 0-0 as long as we can.

“We need to be more ruthless and clinical when we get chances.”

Given Salford’s recent goalscoring issues, it was asked if Neil planned to go into the market for a striker in January, he said: “You can see that we’re missing that type of player, we’re missing that type of focal point for our team. Somebody that can score, somebody who’s a real threat in behind, somebody who can link the play.

“We’re looking all the time, we want to strengthen the squad, there are areas of it where we can get better, we can be better. We’ve signed some players, we’ve signed some good young players that have really got potential and they’re trying to bed in and learn their way.” He said.

Salford’s next fixture is a visit to Hartlepool, with the bottom of the league side giving The Ammies a good chance to bounce back from their recent disappointing results.

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