DAN Trenkel has called into question some of his Great Wakering Rovers team’s desire after their “woeful” defeat to Barkingside on Monday evening.

Rovers were beaten 2-1 by the perennial strugglers, who took only their second win all season against Trenkel’s men.

The result continued a recent trend of below-par performances against sides Rovers may be expected to beat, with defeats against Romford and Brantham Athletic recently.

And the Rovers boss condemned the performance of his players, describing Barkingside as “the worst side I have seen at Ryman level for many years”.

“The performance was woeful,” he said. “Barkingside are without a doubt the worst side I have seen at Ryman level for many years and yet we lost to them, which doesn't say a lot about us.

“Some of our players are going into games in the wrong frame of mind, believing they are better than what they are.

“We are playing well against the big boys and woefully against the sides who we should be beating. It is nothing to do with ability; it's purely about having a will to win and a desire to all the unselfish bits on the pitch well. We do not have enough players wanting to do that at the moment, wanting to get hurt for the cause.”

Rovers have back-to-back matches with Aveley coming up, plus an FA Trophy match against Royston Town at the start of October.

And Trenkel says the team needs to improve, as he looks to bring in new squad members in the coming days.

“They need to buck their ideas up as the teams we are coming up against, including the trophy game at Royston, will be unforgiving.

“It hasn’t helped we’ve been disrupted all season long so far by players going on holidays, which I can never get my head around, and a few injuries to key players.

“I am looking into strengthening the squad in the next couple of weeks and have made a number of seven-day approaches to try to get some players in.

“They will give us greater strength in depth and give me the right players who will turn up with the same will to win every single game, not just when they fancy it because we are playing on a nice pitch away from home.”