Workington boss Chris Willcock will watch Reds next opponents in FA Trophy action on Saturday.
Because the Cumbrians lost 1-0 to Brandon in the trophy they are without a game this weekend, returning to action on November 6 at Mossley.
Willcock will take Reds training at Penrith on Saturday morning and then dash to Hyde where Mossley are in trophy action.
“It’s an opportunity to have a good first-hand look at them before we play them a week later. What I know now, without watching them, is that we will have to defend much better against them.
“On Saturday against Runcorn, we gave them three goals of the four. I will give them some credit for the second goal but the three others were gifted.
“In many ways, I thought we did well with the ball against the Linnets, particularly in the first half and the start of the second half. Unfortunately, we didn’t create enough, and that with our defensive shortcomings cost us.
“The key moments came in the first half when their keeper pulled off a worldie save to deny Tinners (Conor Tinnion) and we had a stonewall penalty turned down.
“Now that’s what the keeper is there for and it doesn’t say we would have scored from a penalty, so really it’s down to our defensive errors or we could have won the game 2-1.
“We have to get back to what we were doing at the start of the season – keeping clean sheets – and that will certainly be what’s required at Mossley.
“I actually spoke to the Mossley manager this week about their game on Tuesday with Runcorn when they won 4-0. He said Runcorn played well but made four mistakes.”
It was perhaps somewhat unfortunate that a Reds’ players night-out, planned and arranged six weeks ago, should take place after Reds home defeat earlier in the day.
Willcock said: “I know the fans would be frustrated and one or two of them expressed that feeling around town and I can understand that but I told the lads the responsibility was mine and I would take the criticism.
“We have five training sessions to get things sorted and work on things with players before we meet Mossley and Tuesday was an excellent session with 19 players there.
“But unfortunately key players were unable to train which meant we had to put on hold what we were going to do defensively.”
Sam Smith took a bang on the head against Runcorn and is on the easy list; Kieran Charlton is also struggling with problems to both knees while Kyle Harrison had a personal matter to attend to.
Willcock, wherever he has managed, has developed strong defensive systems and is determined to follow that principle at Workington.
Reds were watertight at the start of the season, but have started to leak goals (although four in one game is the worst so far) and it happened briefly in Willcock’s career before.
“We conceded five goals when I was at Ramsbottom, against the Reds actually, so I did a bit of work on the training ground and made one or two changes. After that, we went on a 23-match unbeaten run. I’m not saying that will happen this time but I expect us to be a lot tighter when we resume,” he said.
