MARK Collier has warned his Chippenham Town players that he won’t hesitate to bring in fresh blood to replace them if they continue to let their standards slip.

The Bluebirds manager was irked by his side’s below-par display as they suffered a 3-1 defeat at struggling AFC Totton on Tuesday night – the Hampshire outfit’s first league victory since they beat the Bluebirds 2-1 at Hardenhuish Park in August.

Collier is adamant he won’t allow Town to churn out another similarly below-par display and says his team have no choice but to buck up their ideas ahead of their clash with Calor League Southern Premier Division leaders Hemel Hempstead Town this weekend.

“You can’t just turn in those kinds of performances and expect to get anything from the game – no disrespect but we were playing one of the lesser sides in the division and they’ve beaten us comfortably,” said Collier.

“We’ve played very well for 20 minutes and popped it around but we’ve conceded a goal and heads went down, with people starting to feel sorry for themselves. That’s not the way we expect things to happen and it was a shocking performance.

“I’m responsible for results but they’re responsible for performances and it was very, very poor.

“Some people have put themselves in a difficult position because those kinds of performances can’t be tolerated.

“I understand that people are going to have lesser games some weeks but it was not acceptable to me and Tom (Jones, assistant) and we just won’t allow that.

“With people like Alan Griffin and Iain Harvey missing, and with Lee Phillips coming off, it was a chance for the younger players to step up to the plate but they haven’t done that.

“They’re all difficult games in this division but Hemel will be thinking ‘we can’t wait to play Chippenham Town’ because if we perform like that, they’ll score eight or nine.”

Collier (right) added: “I’ve questioned the players and asked if what we’re asking them to do is too complicated? We’re not asking anything more than getting the basics right when things aren’t going well.

“If it’s too much for the players that we’ve got then maybe we’ll have to bring in some that do understand what we’re asking of them.

“We’ve got quite a big squad and that squad’s going to have to be looked in to now because there were five or six that let me down badly.”

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