Newmarket Town manager vows to continue working hard in bid to turnaround poor league form

By his own admission, Michael Shinn is enduring his toughest period in management.

However, the Newmarket Town player-boss has insisted he will continue to work harder in a bid to turn around his side’s ailing form.

Saturday’s 4-1 loss at Hadleigh United extended the Jockeys’ winless run of results in the Thurlow Nunn League Premier Division to nine matches, seven of which have ended in defeat.

“It’s tough,” admitted Shinn. “It’s the toughest time I’ve had since going into management.

“But tough times don’t last forever at clubs. Results aren’t going our way, but all we can keep doing is working hard.

“I can’t work any harder than I am. The harder things get, the harder you have to work as a manager – it’s not in my nature to do it a different way.

“From the outside I’m sure there are people questioning what needs to change, but that’s the beauty of management – you can change it.

“I like to prove people wrong, to prove to people we’ve assembled a good group of players because that’s what we’ve got.

“It’s why I went into management. Playing wasn’t a big challenge for me anymore emotionally, but in a weird way I enjoy that aspect of management.

“Results clearly need to change though, this can’t keep going on. I know I’ve got the backing of the people around me and we’ll keep plugging away at it.”

One way Shinn may look to improve things over the coming weeks is recruitment.

Midfielder Joe Bennett returned to the club last week after a spell with higher-league Welwyn Garden City, but with the likes of James Hall and Max York having recently moved on, more additions could be forthcoming.

“We’ve lost two or three recently so we might need to freshen it up,” added Shinn.

“We were missing five at Hadleigh on Saturday for different reasons and so the 11 pretty much picked itself.

“It probably shows our depth is not where it needs to be. At the start of the season (six straight wins) we had real competition for places and everyone was having to try hard to get a game.

“It probably isn’t like that at the moment at that’s why we’re getting those spells in games when mistakes are happening both boxes.”

On Saturday Shinn will take his team to face a Mulbarton Wanderers side that have adapted to life at Step 5 with flying colours.

Wanderers, who were promoted in the summer, currently sit third and have tasted defeat just once at home in the league this term.

On paper it does not appear to be the most attractive of fixtures for Newmarket, but Shinn feels his players tend to turn up and perform against the better sides.

He said: “Every game is tough when you’re in one of these spells. Even games against the teams at the bottom become very tricky.

“But we do tend to perform better against teams at the top end. Like in the Vase against Redbridge (2-1 win on October 23), we knew it was a hard game and we’ve turned up and performed really well.

“Mulbarton have started really well and are on a good run, but we know the quality is in our squad to cause problems.”

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