Reid – Players Have To Look At Themselves

Midfielder Andy Reid has said that he feels only Michail Antonio can so far claim to have ‘delivered’ so far this season, and it’s about time the players looked at themselves for our current run of form, and the mounting speculation dealing with the future of manager Stuart Pearce.

In an interview carried by the Nottingham Post Reid was clear that the players had to take responsibility for their own form and work hard to improve it.

‘We all feel a little responsible, to be honest. You always have players who are not playing and who are not happy because of that. That would be the case at every club. But, if you were to ask the majority of the players here, they would say that the manager is fair and that he is doing a good job. As players, we feel responsible for the fact that the manager is even under pressure, but that is the nature of football and the nature of being at a big club.’

Reid goes on to say that you can talk about stability, and changing formations but the bottom line is only Antonio has been ‘absolutely fantastic this season.’

‘Probably, other than him, there is nobody else who can claim that they have been 100% certain to start every game, with their performances.’

Adding that he feels if everybody was honest, nobody would claim that significant improvement isn’t required on a personal level from the players and if anybody other than Antonio thought this was good enough, then they’d be lying.

‘There is no point beating around the bush, we know that as platers. It’s not a difficult position for me to say that and it should not be difficult for any of the other players. We need to perform better, as individuals and as a collective.’

Reid ends by saying that ultimately people can blame managers, players, tactics, formations and a whole host of things, but if the players are doing their jobs and giving their all results will more often than not reflect that, irrespective of anything else you can highlight and despite being injured since September he says that he includes himself in that assessment.