Steve Morison reflected on a disappointing afternoon at Altrincham, which saw Sutton fall to a fifth defeat of the 2025/26 campaign.
Despite Ashley Nadesan giving the U’s the lead in the first half, Alty came out in the second with a leveller just five minutes after the restart through Jimmy Knowles, before James Gale struck with ten minutes to go to give Altrincham all three points; a goal which summed up Sutton’s struggles at the minute having come directly from a superb Jack Sims save, only for Gale to be in the right place at the right time to tap home the rebound.
“First half the lads were excellent” Morison said, “I thought we fully deserved our lead and then we have the opportunity after half time to 2-0 up and they go up the other end and score.
“It feels a bit like punishment at the minute, getting punished for every kind of mistake we make; we work really hard to make chances. I can’t have a go at the players, they’re giving me everything.”
On Nadesan, Morison spoke positively, having watched his striker finally notch his first league goal of the season.
“I said to him ‘you’ll get a scrappy one’ and he did, I’m just gutted he didn’t get the next one”
The Head Coach, who had to serve a touchline ban at the J. Davidson Stadium, also had to contend with a late injury to Edon Pruti, who had to be replaced after the warm-up by Jayden Harris.
“Edon [Pruti] goes down in the warm-up feeling his groin but he’s played every minute of every game and you can see why having stepped up the level and it’s really difficult. They’re trying their hardest for this football club and I hope everyone can see that; it hurts at the minute.”
Looking ahead now, Sutton are set to embark on a couple of crucial tests up next, with the visit of Tamworth preceding a trip to newly promoted Brackley Town, and will be opportunities to gain some important points after a disappointing start to the campaign.
“We know it [Tamworth] will be a completely different test to today, we’re not going to have anyone back for the game so it’s going to be as we are. The lads have got to keep plugging away and we’ll keep trusting themselves; everyone’s looking at themselves, everyone’s really frustrated, everyone’s upset, everyone’s down.”
“We can’t do anymore, we’re working so, so hard, we’re giving them everything, we’re doing pre-, post-game analysis, feeding them, we stopped at Port Vale who helped us out yesterday, we travelled differently so we didn’t have enough sleep; we’re doing absolutely everything, we’re not leaving any stone unturned to try and get out of this terrible start to the season that we’re having.”
