PAUL Carden says there was “a massive lack of belief” in his Warrington Town squad during today’s 2-0 defeat to Farsley Celtic.

Yellows succumbed to two first-half goals at Cantilever Park as they made a losing start to the new Evo-Stik Premier Division season.

Report: Yellows 0 Farsley 2

With six debutants in his starting line-up, Carden stressed it will take time for his new squad to gel but admits things will have to improve quickly.

He also said his players went away from a game plan that allowed them to edge the early exchanges, leading to them losing control of the game.

“It’s one of those we need to quickly move on from,” he said.

“We cannot perform that badly and expect to do anything this season.

“I thought the game from the off was always going to be tentative and scrappy.

“It was, but I thought we were edging it until we decided to go away from how the game has played out.

“They went with three up front but we decided to play out from the back. Before that, we’d had joy when we’d gone long and hit Josh Amis.

“It was still early in the game so we didn’t want to give anything away.

“It wasn’t about not wanting us to pass the ball, but we had to play the state of the game. Them having three up doesn’t allow you to play out from the back on a dry pitch.

“We decided to do that and we copped a sucker punch for it as they scored the goal.”

Nathan Turner and former Yellows winger Will Hayhurst struck excellent long-range goals for Farsley, who had striker James Spencer sent off for two yellow cards late on.

However, Carden felt his side very rarely looked like scoring, with new signing Adam Hughes coming closest when his header from a corner was cleared off the line and up onto the crossbar.

“There seemed to be a massive lack of belief when the goal went in,” he said.

“When they scored again it looked as if we could be playing until midnight and we wouldn’t have mustered up enough.

“They were worthy winners. It’s a very new squad and it is going to take a bit of settling in.

“Fair play to Farsley. I think they will be up there this year.

“They have know-how, nous and ability. We should have shown that today, but we didn’t.”

Town must pick themselves up quickly for their trip to Lancaster City on Tuesday, kick off 7.45pm.