TONY Sullivan accused his players of complacency after Saturday’s defeat to Whitby left them still unsure of survival in the Northern Premier League’s top flight.

Results elsewhere mean Witton remain five points clear of the relegation zone, but the Albion boss warned his side afterwards they cannot repeat a performance that led to a 3-0 reverse against the struggling Seasiders.

“When you’ve been on the sort of run we have, it’s important to keep people’s feet on the floor,” he said.

“It’s dangerous when players start to believe they are better than what they are, because they switch off.

“Collectively, that’s what happened.

“We made it easy for Whitby, and the lads will probably get a lot of criticism for that. They’ll deserve it too.

“That display was the total opposite of the one at Ashton a week ago, which is the most frustrating thing for me as the manager.”

Witton had lost only once since the start of February before kick off, a statistic Sullivan stressed should be remembered.

He added: “We don’t feel under added pressure because we’ve lost to Whitby.

“This group has lost twice since Grantham beat us, and one of those games was against King’s Lynn when we played well.

“But we deserved nothing from this game.

“Nobody tried to tackle their player for the first goal, while for the second a badly miss-hit pass has been punished.

“For the third, we switched off at a set piece.

“We didn’t do the things we needed to beat opponents like that.

“The players will learn though; they’ve put their hand in a fire and got burned. When that happens, you don’t do the same thing again.”

Witton visit Nantwich on Monday.

Both teams start the contest tied on 48 points, with the Dabbers higher in the table as a consequence of having a superior goal difference.

Albion were convincing winners in the return game at Christmas.

“We have to perform there,” said Sullivan.

“We expect it to be tough; they had a great result [at Curzon Ashton] on Saturday, and will want to beat us because we were comprehensively better than them on Boxing Day.

“The players can expect changes, and none can complain if they’re sat watching from the stand.”