Jim Bentley on "horrible" part of his job as Fylde manager

Fylde boss Jim Bentley is on a three-game losing run Picture: TIM GOODE / PA WIRE

Sheffield United team changes for AFC Fylde match showed no disrespect says mana...

His AFC Fylde side lost 2-1 when they travelled to Sheffield United for Sunday’s FA Cup third round tie.

For many players in non-league football, opportunities to play at such stadiums at Bramall Lane may only come around once in their careers.

With three former Blades in his squad – Danny Philliskirk, Mark Yeates and Andy Taylor – Bentley knew what the occasion would mean to his players.

“It’s a horrible job being a manager when big games come round like this and I said that to them,” he told the club website.

“I can only pick 11, I can only make three subs. We made positive subs today.

“Philliskirk started the game, we got Yeatesy onto the pitch who is en ex-player, unfortunately we couldn’t get Tayls on.

“But when you’re chasing a goal you need to go a bit more attack-minded so we made the decision to try and be positive in our approach and that nearly worked for us.”

Bentley had two reasons to be pleased on Sunday; the first being the way his side acquitted themselves and the second being an opportunity to pick the brain of Blades boss Chris Wilder, someone he knows well.

Bentley said: “When the team sheets went in and our players went out for the warm-up I went in and had a cup of tea with him.

“I was speaking about certain things like what is the difference? What happens at the top that he finds different to the lower level leagues?

“I’ve got a midfielder there in (Ryan) Croasdale who probably covered every blade of grass.

“I don’t want to single him out, but he does. He wins all the GPS stats.

“They’re a fit bunch, they’ve pushed themselves, they’ve worked hard, they’ve been aggressive at times and they’ve applied themselves right.

“We can take a lot of positives from today, we’ve got real good moments in the games so far.

“We’re just coming a little bit short. One of those moments is just putting the ball in the back of the net or a little bit of luck, whatever that may be.

“To come away to a Premier League club, a Premier League club that’s in good form, and give an account of ourselves like we have done, we’ve got to take the positives and take that into the FA Trophy next week and into our league programme.”