Lawrence: Our Blackest Night

By: Bill Osborne
Date: 26/09/2001

"It's a black night for us. What's far more important than the result are the injuries, Menno's is a hamstring and it's difficult to say how long he'll be, but it won't be less than three weeks. Macca's looks like a ruptured calf muscle and that is a long time. That's a savage blow." - Lennie.

With Town down to 10 men with McDermott suffering a calf injury, sub Bradley Allen scored leaving Town with a chance to gain a point but the second goal never came despite a last minute resurgence by the Mariners.

Once again the defence appeared to fall apart especially at set pieces and Grimsby's great start looks like dissipating unless they can halt the sudden decline in their fortunes. It will not be easy now with Town facing Bradford City on Saturday with key men on the injury list.

Lawrence told the Grimsby Telegraph "We have to go to Bradford and have a good scrap and get something and then beat Rotherham. If we don't beat them, the good start is dissipating before our eyes."

"...They didn't outplay us - they mugged us!!..."

"The next week or two is a key and defining moment for this club and we have to get the winning mentality back."

"The defending against set plays, I can go back through my managerial career and I've not had that in three games before. Then the first time their striker gets the ball at his feet after 55 minutes they score. Amazingly we had enough chances to win it. They didn't outplay us, they mugged us."

"We were totally second best in both penalty areas and not good enough in our own. We led a charmed life when we had 10 men and we were painfully not good enough in our own box and we haven't been for three or four games."

"I can't recall a problem like it and the longer it goes on I might have to look at a different system, especially with the injuries. It may well be there's other people missing as well, but I can't say until Thursday."

"It's not the spirit that's lacking, it's the understanding of what they need to do to keep up there. I don't know what part the expectancy played out there."

"Maybe I'm overcooking it, I don't know. I've said that if we win we're in the top six. I've put that all over the back page but in my heart of hearts, I don't think that is so. But I've just lost two of my best five players, and now I've got a different set of problems."

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