PAUL Carden believes the wind and outside factors played a major role in his side’s 4-1 defeat to Nantwich on Tuesday night.

A run of four straight wins in all competitions was halted at Weaver Stadium as goals from Matt Bell, John Johnstone and Andy White gave the hosts a 3-0 lead inside the first 20 minutes.

Michael Monaghan’s goal briefly raised hopes of a Yellows comeback after the break, but it was not to be as Ryan Brooke’s injury-time penalty completed the scoring for the high-flying Dabbers.

While bemoaning the role of nature in several of Nantwich’s goals, Carden says his side’s own shortcomings played just as big a part.

“If you look at it, at least two of those goals don’t happen without the wind,” he said.

“They’ve had a free kick from around 40 yards out that has just flown straight in and the third goal catches the wind and flies into the top corner.

“We need to be better in the build-up though and deal with those situations better.”

The game was also interrupted by floodlight failure with the score at 1-0, just after Yellows striker Dan Hattersley saw a goalbound effort hold up in a patch of mud before being cleared off the line.

Carden believes the game would have been different had that slice of luck gone his side’s way.

He also revealed traffic problems caused him to make late changes to his starting line-up.

“Hatts has snatched at it a bit so there’s not much pace on the ball, which probably allowed it to get caught up,” he said.

“If that goes in, it’s 1-1 and then you’re going into the enforced break with a whole different mindset rather than having made a bad start.

“Scott Harries and Ruben Jerome both got held up in traffic and both were due to start the game.

“Scott arrived at 7.25 and Ruben got there at 7.40. He had to jump out of the car, get changed and do his warm-up behind the linesman.

“I had to change the team at the last minute which didn’t help but we can’t go using that as an excuse.

“We were a bit naïve as to what they could do and I said that to the lads.”