Banbury boss believes new faces are needed

​Christmas print deadlines meant that Saturday’s (23rd) game at Warrington Town and the Boxing Day game with Brackley Town were played after this week’s Guardian went to press, but a 4-1 loss at home to Chorley last Tuesday left Banbury looking for inspiration going into last weekend’s encounter.

And speaking to Puritans Radio after that game, boss Mark Jones was in no doubt as to why his side were beaten.

He said: "We were beaten by the better team. They were better than us in every department and we didn’t deserve anything from the game.

"You can’t win a game of football by conceding four goals like we did. We got back in the game before half-time and changed a few things at the break but then conceded two more easy goals in the second-half.

“Chorley have been at the top end of the league for the last few seasons and have a 21-22 player squad to choose from. We don’t have that – we had two youth team players on the bench.

"But we weren’t good enough and need to get back to the drawing board. After picking up a draw and a win in our last two games, they were just too strong for us.

"We’ve no divine right to be beating teams like this and anyone who thinks we do are in a different world.

"Obviously as a coach and a manager it’s my job to try and get it right, but when you’ve been well beaten you have to be able to put your hands up and say it wasn’t good enough.”

Jones added that he felt changes to the side were likely to be necessary to try and improve performances.

He said: “There will be changes because I can’t accept certain individuals’ level of performance and I won’t accept it. At the end of the day, we’ve all got jobs to do, and if certain people aren’t doing the jobs then I have to do something about it.

"So I won’t just accept mediocrity every week, so there’s no question we’ll have to strengthen, but you can’t just pick experienced and top players off of a tree at this level.

"It’s not just about bringing in people from lower levels, we need to try and get established players at this level. That isn’t easy at the moment."