CLIFTONVILLE manager Barry Gray has placed his players on notice and admitted his own future at Solitude was up for review following Saturday’s Danske Bank Premiership defeat at the Oval.
The Reds were beaten 1-0 by Glentoran, meaning Gray’s side have now lost three of their last five league games and have only won two of their last 10.
“Saturday was just was just extremely, extremely poor,” said the former Warrenpoint boss.
“There’s no excuse for it. I said to everyone yesterday, me as manager, you have to take responsibility for it and I’m happy to do that, but everyone alongside me needs to take responsibility as well.”
Following the game at the Oval, which left the Reds seven points adrift of Glenavon in the last automatic European qualification spot, Gray read the riot act to his squad: “I said to them I didn’t think they were playing for me and I didn’t think they were playing for Cliftonville.
“Why that is, I don’t think it’s a conscious decision by anyone, but it’s at the point where a continuation of this means they’ll find themselves not playing for Cliftonville in due course and, possibly, me not even managing Cliftonville, so it’s a serious situation and I think everybody needs to just collectively take responsibility for it.
“When they cross that white line, I’m restricted in terms of what I can do, so all my work is done pre and post-that. I’ll do whatever I can for them, but they’ve been lifted and laid all season long, by me and the club and, if nothing else, on a personal level you have to get something back from them.”
Curtis Allen bundled home a second-half winner for the Glens after seeing a penalty in the first period saved by Reds ’keeper Brian Neeson. While Rory Donnelly did hit a post for Cliftonville and Jude Winchester had a rasping shot saved in the dying minutes of the game, there was little else in the way of inspiration to be seen.
“There’s very few of us on the senior panel who this year could sit back and say ‘this isn’t my responsibility’,” Gray added.
“And while we’ve had chances yesterday [Saturday], so have they and we had chances last week and the week before that and the week before that and whatever other weeks. I don’t think you can make excuses for that – if this goes in or if the ref had’ve give us this penalty – every team could say the same thing, it doesn’t solve what we need to get out of the games at the minute and that’s win.”
Things don’t get any easier for Cliftonville as they travel to Windsor Park to take on Linfield in an Irish Cup quarter-final this Saturday, but Gray isn’t throwing the towel in just yet.
“It was always massive, it means now probably ourselves and Linfield are going into the game in the same fashion – it dictates the season for both clubs,” he said.
“I don’t really care about Linfield, for us it’s a case of winner takes all. People ask me can we win it – I still firmly think we can win the game, regardless of what happened yesterday or what happened last week because you keep going back to the point, when you have the ability we have, you’re entitled to think you can win any game.”
