Roscoe in at deep end with AFC Fylde

The Coasters are away to Harrogate Town tonight (7.45pm) and will still be without several first-choice defenders. It means teenager Roscoe, on loan from Fleetwood Town, will again find himself in at the deep end.

Saturday’s first league defeat since August saw the Coasters slip to fourth in Vanarama National North and the manager welcomes a quick chance to put things right against another club with promotion ambitions.

Challinor said: “I thought Brad did quite well considering. It was difficult for him to come straight in, without having trained with us or met any of the lads. Our defending wasn’t bad on the whole but the mistakes we made were punished.

Roscoe conceded a penalty for the Humbersiders’ second goal and Challinor added: “He went to ground in the penalty area and you have to stay on your feet in that position, but I’m sure he will learn from that.

“That was his first taste of senior football, but if you have ambitions of making the step up you need to adapt quickly. The experience will certainly make him a better player. It’s important that he takes things on game by game and learns from any mistakes.

“This will be another tough game against a side near the top of the division (fifth). They have expectations this season of going up, but it is equally important to us as we are desperate to get back to winning ways.

“Had it been a defeat that meant we had a lot to work on, maybe a week between games would be beneficial, but I don’t think we did an awful lot wrong on Saturday, so we are keen to go again.

“We obviously got off to a poor start to each half and ultimately that killed the game. Aside from the first few minutes of each half, I thought we dominated much of the match. Now we don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves. We have to deal with it and look ahead.

“We are quite limited in terms of selection. Tom Hannigan and Josh Langley are injured and Josh Wilson broke his hand on Saturday, so he is unavailable too.

“We have the option to bring Alex Marrow in (the midfielder signed last week), but we don’t have the personnel to make many changes.”