Ballinamallard manager Gavin Dykes says that players are now playing for their futures at the club as his side slipped further adrift at the bottom of the Danske Bank Premiership table with the 5-0 thumping at the hands of Cliftonville on Saturday.
The Mallards have now conceded 11 goals in their last two games with this game following on from the six goal mauling against Linfield at Ferney Park the previous week and and Dykes states that players now need to show that they want to stay at the club.
“I have been very loyal to the players and I still think they are a good bunch but if people are going to come in in January, and people are going to come in, then people have to go so players are playing for their futures here,” said Dykes.
“There is no hiding place for anybody, we’ve done our talking and now the players have to decide whether they want to be here. I’ve told them we are bottom of the table and the table doesn’t lie. We are the worst team in the division, and the worst team in the division by a long way at this present moment, and that has to change. It’s up to the lads now to knuckle down and over the next few weeks we have to go out and get points.”
The Mallards got off to the worst possible start on Saturday against the in form Reds when they conceded after only two minutes with Jay Donnelly firing home. Indeed, even before the goal Mallards netminder Richard Brush had pulled off two cracking saves as Cliftonville went on the attack from the first whistle.
 And it went further downhill from that early point as Joe Gormley grabbed two goals to leave it 3-0 at the break. He nodded in his first in the 31st minute and a mix up at the back allowed him in for his second.
Ballinamallard did improve after the break but another mix up allowed Danny Hughes to slot home number four and Hughes wrapped up the scoring with a fifth from the spot.
“We went there with a gameplan but we conceded from a set piece after two minutes and the gameplan goes out the window,” stated Dykes. “You then try and stay in the game and we give away a terrible second goal and for the third goal our goalkeeper and centre half collide and it’s a simple task of tapping into the net. The fourth goal is the same and the fifth was a penalty. We changed the shape at half time and I felt we were much better in the second half but we still gave away two poor goals,” he added.
It gets no easier for the Mallards this week with free scoring Glenavon the visitors to Ferney Park this Saturday but Dykes is expecting his side to be much more competitive.
“We are playing against one of the best sides in the division in Glenavon which is a huge test for us but we are at home and hopefully we will have a few bodies back and we will be competitive against them. We then have a massive game against Warrenpoint so we have to get focused for those two games,” he said.
James McKenna, Johnny Leddy and Richard Clarke will come back into the starting line up for the game against the Lurgan Blues while Dykes is also hoping that Stuart Hutchinson and Ryan Curran will come into contention for a starting slot with both having been struggling with injury.