Skinner holds his hands up to Colliers’ defeat against Seaham

The Colliers trailed to a goal by Thomas Lawson towards the end of the first half but got back on terms in the 73rd minute through skipper Dean Briggs. However minutes later, striker Adam Lennox headed what proved to be the winner.

Skinner said: “I take full responsibility for the defeat today. I chopped and changed too many things. We came out to play a similar system that we had employed against Blyth Town on Tuesday night and credit to Seaham because they started brightly and caused us one or two problems.

"There wasn’t really a break in play where I could try and get some information onto the players about areas to press and areas not to press and we ended up changing shape about four times today - and you can’t do that to players because they don’t get any set rhythm or way of playing.”

He continued: “I’d set up to play a certain way and then when I’ve changed it, the personnel on the pitch doesn’t suit the change.

"So at half time, I’ve got a decision to make – do I change lots of personnel or do we get the information into them (the players) and revert back to what suits the personnel on the pitch which is what we did but it didn’t quite work in the second half.

"So then I changed it again – and again that doesn’t suit the personnel so I had to make substitutions and bring subs on into what was a difficult game.”

He added: “We got back to 1-1 and you think ‘well it might not be our day today but let’s see if we can steal a point or maybes pinch another one (goal) and win which would have been brilliant’ - but it wasn’t to be.

"To concede so quickly after equalising was disappointing but in the last couple of games we have been on the other side of that, where we’ve got back to 1-1 and gone on to win it. However there comes a point where you can’t keep giving teams a lead because it will come back to bite you.”

Skinner touched on Seaham’s winner from Adam Lennox: “All goals you concede are bad but today it was the second one in particular.

"I’ve talked about it for the last couple of weeks about getting into key areas so letting the opposition get to the by line to cross the ball is a dangerous area to cross it from and we’ve gone to sleep at the back post and allowed the centre forward (Lennox) a free header in the six yards box which is very disappointing.”

He added: “It was a little bit of poor defending but again probably the lad’s heads are spinning thinking ‘what shape are we playing now’ and ‘where am I playing.’

"The defeat was my fault - and I told the players that. I’ll take that one – it was down to me and not them.

"We have no midweek game so we will train on Tuesday and get ready to go again on Saturday against Crook Town.”

Tom Bramley, Max Emmerson and Bobby Taylor remain sidelined with injuries whilst Skinner also needs to check the fitness of another couple of players ahead of the 3pm kick-off.