MATT Clarke branded his Redditch United side ‘an embarrassment’ after the Reds lost 1-0 away at 10-man Leiston who played without a recognised goalkeeper for more than 75 minutes.
The home side had goalkeeper William Johnson sent off after just 14 minutes after he deliberately handled the ball outside of his penalty area.
With no substitute goalkeeper available on the bench, Leiston defender Kyran Clements took the gloves for the remainder of the match at Victory Road.
However, the hosts stunned the Reds on 65 minutes as Jamar Loza scored the game’s only goal to bring an end to United’s three-game winning run.
The result means Redditch sit 12th in the Southern League Premier Central table.
Clarke felt his side lacked desire and admits there is no hiding place for him or his players following an ‘unacceptable performance’.
Clarke blasted: “I’m embarrassed, it was an embarrassment, in all my time as a manager, it’s the worst I’ve ever known.
“We were on top 11 versus 11, the keeper gets sent off, they don’t have a keeper on the bench and then we put on 75 minutes of an embarrassment of a display.
“It’s nothing to do with shape or pattern, it’s desire, we had players out there who cheated us, themselves and the supporters.
“I thought we were past that [performance] but we had people who decided to play off their own script.
“The minute you go away from what’s expected of you this [result] happens, when you feel you’ve won three on the bounce and you’ve arrived, football has a habit of doing that.
“Our front boys were awful, lazy, didn’t work hard enough, didn’t do what was asked of them, didn’t make the runs we demanded from them.
“I thought we had turned the corner but on the evidence of that, no we haven’t, their goal was unacceptable, I’m lost for words, it was an unacceptable performance.
“Everybody from the staff to the players has to have a look at themselves off the back of that because that won’t be accepted.
“There’s no hiding place, we felt we had turned the corner, we wanted to progress, there’s no excuses, we have to be so much better.”
The game exploded into life on 14 minutes when a defensive mix-up saw Leiston keeper Johnson handle the ball outside of his penalty area.
However, the referee blew his whistle to bring play back for the offence despite Marvellous Onabirekhanlen bearing down on goal with an empty net in front of him
The referee showed Johnson a straight red card with defender Clements taking the gloves in the absence of a goalkeeper on the bench.
Redditch tested stand-in keeper Clements from the resulting free-kick as the Leiston stopper kept out Ryan Boothe’s set-piece diving to his right.
The Reds failed to seriously trouble Clements again in the remainder of the first half.
And some slack defending allowed Leiston to take the lead on 65 minutes as Loza turned home George Quantrell’s square pass from inside the six-yard box.
United eventually had the ball in the net later in the second half only for the referee to blow for a foul against debutant Anthony Dwyer after he bundled the ball home from close range.
The visitors failed to test Clements in the second period as the stand-in keeper made a number of confident catches on an afternoon to forget for Clarke’s men.
