PAUL Carden believes having to stick with largely the same team for a number of weeks caught up with his Warrington Town side today.

Yellows fell to their third home defeat of the season as Stalybridge Celtic left Cantilever Park as 2-1 winners.

With several first-team players still unavailable, Carden stuck with the same starting 11 as Tuesday’s win at Matlock but included new signing Iwan Murray on the bench.

However, he felt the fatigue contributed to a display he labelled “flat” and “lethargic.”

“We were so flat it was untrue – you wouldn’t have thought we’d just won two on the bounce,” he said.

“I didn’t have a good feeling about today before the game.

“We’ve had the same players putting it in for the past few weeks. We haven’t been able to change it up too much and it showed today.

“We were lethargic, we were reactive rather than anticipating things.

“We’ve had a few headers but I think our first shot was in the 95th minute.

“Our play was slow, the pitch played slow as well which suited them.

“They killed the game. They used nous and we didn’t.”

Yellows trailed from the 10th minute onwards as Berat Ustabasi put the Celts ahead on the counter-attack.

Neil Kengni doubled the lead with another breakaway goal in the dying minutes and while Ben Garrity’s header set up a frantic finish, Town could not force an equaliser.

“We were missing a focal point all over the pitch,” Carden said.

“In games like that, you need someone to either get a pass in or make it stick up front as it was coming back too easily.

“We didn’t work hard enough to give each other options when we were on the ball.

“When certain players aren’t as influential in the game as they can be, the rest of us seem disappointed and don’t want to step up and be that player. That’s a problem.”