Blyth Spartans warned it's 'now or never' ahead of Prescot Cables clash

Michael Connor has warned Blyth Spartans it is ‘now or never’ in their bid to secure a long-awaited win as he prepares to hand a debut to his latest signing in Saturday’s home game with Prescot Cables.

After completing deals for the likes of Sam Hodgson, Shay Richardson and Dan Myers over the last six weeks, Connor continued to add to his squad on Friday when Spartans completed the signing of Gateshead defender Will Constantin on dual-registration terms. The 21-year-old joined the National League club in the summer of 2023 and featured against the likes of Weston-Super-Mare and Hereford as Gateshead embarked on their successful FA Trophy run.

Constantin will now hope to play a part in helping Spartans kickstart an upturn in form over the coming weeks and could make his first appearance for the club as they target a first win of Connor’s managerial reign this weekend. As it stands, Spartans are sat at the bottom of the Northern Premier League Premier Division table and are nine points shy of escaping the relegation zone. After squandering a number of chances to claim what would have been vital wins in recent weeks, Connor has stressed there can be no excuses for not finding an improvement in performances and results, starting against Prescot on Saturday afternoon.

He told The Gazette: “It feels like now or never in regards for Saturday and you look at the games, we haven’t had the results, we’ve had two draws but you look at them and we should have had more. We were two up against FC United of Manchester after missing a penalty, we had three penalty appeals in the Hyde game that the referee then admitted were probably penalties and had a player sent-off. We should have beat Bamber Bridge and at Warrington we had two shots off the line.

“We could have had 12 points, we are sat here with two and it’s not good enough. We have a lot of young players, we have injuries but every team has that and we can’t keep giving excuses. We’ve had the lads for a while now, we had a session on Saturday, we had a really good session on Tuesday and Thursday and we can’t say we haven’t trained together. The squad is now pretty much balanced and we can not have another draw, we can’t have another defeat, we need to be winning on Saturday.”

Connor has confirmed on-loan Sunderland goalkeeper Adam Richardson is back in contention but right-back Joe Oliver, striker JJ Hooper and midfielder Nicky Deverdics will miss out through injury. Connor Pani also misses the game as he serves a suspension for the red card he received in last month’s defeat against Hyde United. Isiah Cornet, Joseph Abrahart and Michael Woods all left the club earlier this week with the latter joining National League North side Scarborough Athletic.