DEAN KEATES insists Wrexham can’t afford to keeping making excuses in the New Year.

With the Reds’ much publicised takeover by Hollywood A-listers Ryan Reynold and Rob McElhenney to be completed in the next few weeks, the players and management team will be under even more scrutiny.

Despite seeing some players miss training in the run up to Wrexham’s 2-0 defeat at Stockport County on Monday - their first game for nine days - Reds boss Keates says the display was nowhere near good enough.

He also claimed the stop-start season and impending takeover could not be used as reasons for affecting his side.

"We have to deal with it. The ownership and changeover, from day one we have said we can't control that," said Keates.

"It is very sombre in there and so it should be. That is nowhere near good enough for this football club.

"The aspirations that we spoke about internally as a group at the beginning of the season, our objectives that we set out and what we are looking at achieving, that was a million miles away from what we spoke about."

Speaking about preparations for the trip to Edgeley Park where a number of players were unable to train, Keates added: “You trust them when they are not there and we give them a plan in place while they are away, and we can only do so much with the small group that we have got.

“There are no excuses, out there it is personal pride. You need to go out there and you need to perform.

“You can’t hide behind something; we have to accept that performance is nowhere near good enough for this football club, and that is all of us.”