Time for a shake-up says John

Trinidad and Tobago football coach Bertille St Clair has slammed members of the national team after 4-1 beating by Scotland on Sunday in a friendly international in Edinburgh. St Clair reportedly spared no words during a team meeting at the Marriot Hotel on the eve of the team’s departure for home yesterday. Several players came in for stick for not giving sufficient effort in Sunday’s humiliating loss. But on a positive note, both players and members of the technical staff were able to discuss certain issues and patch up minor differences which could auger well for the team on their “Journey to Germany” campaign.

“The guys really did not give the effort that is required at this level and we cannot just sit down and allow things like this to occur. If you cannot give us 100 percent out there then this will not work out as we want it to,” St Clair said on yesterday morning at London’s Heathrow Airport. Technical director Lincoln Phillips didn’t hold back neither but preferred to call for more co-operation among all concerned “As a team we were way below par and the only thing I am not disappointed with now is that sort of performance came at this time and not later down the road. We as a people from Trinidad and Tobago get carried away easily at times,” Phillips said.

“Sometimes we may be on a high after winning and we think we are way on top. So we may beat Dominican Republic in the first qualifier and think we are ready for the later stages. But also we struggle to get back up when we are down,” the former national custodian said. “That is the important part of our preparations now going  into the qualifiers. We must be able to display that character and will to achieve better things. For far too long we have settled for less than what is really needed,” Phillips said. “I think we need a shake-up to get the team really going, more like a way of having the guys lift  their game and even I was able to come across some ways in which I can make an extra contribution following the meeting,” said Stern John.

FIFA vice president Jack Warner was in a disappointed mood following the match saying that he was hopeful that St Clair’s men could pull themselves out of the current deep hole and is hoping for a much improved performance against Northern Ireland on Sunday. The team was expected back home yesterday evening and will journey to Tobago on Thursday. They could be joined in training by striker Dwight Yorke who expressed the desire to practise with the national team on a visit home this week. But he gave no indication of  returning to the side.