Rangers boss planning for next season

Stafford Rangers boss Greg Clowes today admitted he's already planning for next season as the club enter their final nine games of the campaign.

Rangers last lost 3-1 at Bradford Park Avenue last Saturday and face the play-off chasers in the return fixture at Marston Road on Saturday.

The defeat left Clowes' men just under mid-table in the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League and unlikely to go one way or the other this season.

The manager insists relegation is still a possibility, despite a 12-point buffer from the drop zone, but does have eyes on his summer business.

It's Clowes first season in charge at the highest level of nearly 12 years of management and he's looking to kick on.

He said: "I am now planning for next season and I want a lot of those plans in place by the end of this month.

"I have got players in mind, our pre-season agenda, targets, it's everything and I have always planned early.

"It just gives me a bit more time and, in my first season managing at this level, I have learned a hell of a lot.

"I know exactly what I want to do for next season, but getting it is a different ball game."

Clowes revealed he berated his players one-by-one for the weekend collapse, based in large part on a poor second-half performance.

Five of the match-day squad of 16 had played under him in his last post, at Newcastle Town, but he admits some of the team are on borrowed time.

He said: "For the first time this season, I told them what I thought of them individually, which I don't normally do.

"I have done it before in my career as a manager and, sometimes, a group can get away from fingers being pointed.

"I have told certain players exactly what I think of them, regarding Saturday, a performance which I thought summed our season up.

"I stand and fall by my decisions because I brought these players to the club and I picked them, but they didn't perform.

"I have been very fair with people this season, I have given them lots of chances in the hope they can be more consistent.

"The players know what they have got to do to win games in the league and, at this moment, it's falling on deaf ears."