Stockport County manager Jim Gannon believes he is seeing a steady improvement following his side’s impressive comeback away at Braintree Town this weekend but insists that some of his players are still not up to the job.

A last minute equaliser from substitute Danny Rowe saw the Hatters claw back a point from the jaws of defeat having fallen two goals behind with under half an hour remaining.

While some suggested that the inclusion of Rowe off the bench was a stroke of genius by Gannon, the manager himself suggested that the changes were not a difficult decision having previously seen his side struggle to gain a foothold in the game.

"They were easy substitutions," he revealed.

"I couldn’t get them on quick enough. Unfortunately we’d gone a second one down and it just smacked of Gateshead where we had some weak personalities.

"We’ve gone 1-0 down but we don’t stay strong, galvanise ourselves and work our way back into the game, we gift them a second goal. It was a game where we needed a bit of spark.

"We have some solid characters like Joe Connor who have stepped up in the face of adversity and I’m delighted for Danny Rowe as well." Evident then that Gannon was far from pleased with his side’s futility in defence.

A poorly defended quick throw-in allowed Aswad Thomas to put Braintree in front, before Nicky Symons was on hand to double the hosts’ advantage.

At that point, things looked dire for Stockport as they once again failed to get the basics right.

It’s an issue that is becoming increasingly frustrating for the Stockport boss, having explained to his side that while goalless at the break, they were well equipped to win the game.

"I told them at half-time that if they stood strong and were manly then they stood a chance of winning this game with a set play and I’m just disappointed that we didn’t put ourselves in a position of taking all three points.

"Obviously it’s Aaron Cole’s man. We had a problem at Luton where Aaron thought he was marking the thrower but he’s only marking the thrower if the full back is taken.

"Everybody has a job to do and everyone should be marking someone in particular.

"People switch off and what disappointed me after that was that nobody reacted.

"People were poor mentally in terms of reacting and anticipating through the whole game.

"We’ve talked about having to do double sessions because we’ve talked about doing stuff with players in training and then it’s gone out of the window during the next game."

Despite the fight-back, Gannon believes that there is much room for improvement .

And he has called on his players to take stock from Joe Connor who grafted hard to earn his side a point and capped the performance with his side’s equaliser.

"I’m delighted for Danny because he’s off the mark now and it justifies his inclusion today. But the man-of-the-match today was Joe.

"We need people like him to do a job for the team because we’ve got some weaknesses in the way that we defend and Joe was excellent today.

"We know we can’t always afford top quality but we need better players.

"We need to step up and become strong, professional players. At the moment, there’s too many weak ones at this club."

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