HALSTEAD Town held on to top spot in Thurlow Nunn League division one south despite being soundly beaten by Harwich & Parkeston on what Humbugs boss Mark McLean described as "a bad, bad day".

A well under-par display from Halstead saw them beaten 3-0 by the Shrimpers and McLean wants to see a response when his team host Barkingside at the Milbank Stadium on Saturday.

“It was a bad, bad day at Harwich," he said.

“We had a way we wanted to play and we never did it once.

“We wanted to make the pitch big, but it just wasn’t good enough and we fell into their trap.

“They play in a particular way, which we know about, but our players just didn’t execute anything and that was the outcome.

“It could have been however many they wanted it to be in that first half because we were that poor.

“We asked them to move the ball in certain areas quickly but it didn’t happen once.

“I don’t care who we have missing – and there’s a lot of them – but that wasn’t good enough.

“They have to understand simple instructions and you expect more from the players you send out there.

“If you don’t have the basics, then you have nothing to build on.

“The players looked like they didn’t have the basics in that first half and, I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough at any level.

“You don’t go to places like Harwich and get away with that.

“Teams like Harwich have togetherness and hard work ingrained in them but we just looked like a group of individuals.

“I don’t understand that because there are only one or two who are new and the rest have been together for a while.

“They should understand what is asked of them.

“I was beside myself at half time because I can’t deal with opposition players wanting it more.

“They just wanted it more."

McLean is still having to contend with the lengthy list of injuries in his squad that has presented challenges at the start of the campaign and he was frustrated he noticed the absences at Harwich.

He added: “The one thing I have been saying consistently in recent weeks is don’t make me miss players who aren’t here and, unfortunately, I missed every one of them at Harwich.

“There are a lot of them and that’s not good enough.

“You hope the players coming in will prove themselves but that didn’t happen at all.

“It was very poor.

“I knew there was the potential for it to happen because I don’t know any team that can cope with not having what we haven’t and can still get away with it.

“I’m not daft, but I felt we’d stay in the game if we could do the basics better for much longer.

“It’s massively frustrating that players haven’t taken their chance.

“You should never stand to miss people because if you do, it means someone else isn’t working hard enough.

“I never miss anyone if my players who are replacing them are working hard, but we just went through motions and it looked like we didn’t know what we were doing.

“It looked like we had no plan and we had an absolutely clear plan.

“That’s the part we need to have a chat about because that really wasn’t like one of my sides."

McLean is hoping to have Chris Harris, Jack Schelvis, Jake Brown and Joe Morris back available for the visit of Barkingside, but Ricky Gardner, Charlie Pleace and Ben Morgan are expected to be missing.

Following the game against Barkingside, Halstead are then due to be in action in a League Cup first round tie at Cornard United on Tuesday.