SIMON Davies blasted his Chester City players after they turned in another Jekyll and Hyde performance against Port Vale yesterday.
Not for the first time this season, the Blues paid the price for making a slow start as Marc Richards’ early goal set Vale on the way to a 2-1 win at the Deva.
Chester did not fire on all cylinders until towards the end of the first half – and Davies later admitted his team quickly needs to find some consistency.
The City boss said: “We only got going for 10 minutes at the end of the first half.
“We can be happy with the second- half performance but it isn’t good enough to not perform for 30 minutes and give teams a goal start. It just isn’t good enough.
“We need to start games better and if we can do that, we’ll give ourselves a chance.”
Davies handed new striker Eddie Johnson his debut and the former Bradford City man acquitted himself well.
His first game for his hometown club was marred only by a bad miss early in the second half as he blazed the ball high over the crossbar after Ryan Lowe’s shot had come back off the post.
Davies said: “It’s all right creating chances but you must start sticking a few in the back of the net. If Eddie’s chance had gone in I think we would have gone on to win the game.”
Johnson, who is from a family of Blues fans, knew he should have marked his first game for Chester with a goal.
He said: “I’ll practise my shooting. I’m disappointed with that one. It would have been nice to get off to a scoring start and it would have got us back in the game with plenty of time to go.
“We knew if we had got it to 1-1 we would have gone on to win.”
Johnson, who signed a two-year contract last week, feels Chester should be higher up the table, given the talent they have at their disposal.
“We’ve go to start picking up points as quickly as possible,” said the striker. “We’ve got enough in the dressing room to be in a better position than we are.
“The manager wants what we did in the second half for 90 minutes, which I think everybody can see. I heard most of the crowd applauding when we came off at the end but we know it’s not good enough.
“We want to make our home ground a bit of a fortress, for everyone to come here and fear us.”
The Blues are next in action tomorrow at Rochdale (7.45pm).
