MANAGER Rob Cousins insists that Yate Town can still be a force without Lewis Haldane.

The Bluebells face Bridgwater Town in Southern League Division One South & West at Lodge Road this Saturday in their first game since the club announced that the former Bristol Rovers and Port Vale striker left by mutual consent.

Cousins said: “We’ve got to move on from Lewis now.

“No one player is bigger than the club.

“It’s a tough league to get out of and you can’t rely on one player.

“We felt the effort he put in this year was not as big as last year. We need everyone pulling in the same direction – the management team, the directors and the supporters want to see that.

“He didn’t go before because we looked after him and he was well respected and well treated."

Haldane’s departure came just two days after he was dropped from the side in the 2-1 league defeat at Merthyr Town last week and Cousins was unhappy that he did not want to come on as a substitute.

However, the former fans’ favourite insists it was because he felt a niggle in his ankle when warming up on the artificial surface at the Cigg-E stadium.

He said: “My ankle’s got pins in and it was sore. Because of my arthritis in my ankle it plays up and I didn’t want to go on and hurt it.

“Maybe the manager took it the wrong way but I played in every game I could.”

Haldane accepted the time was right to move on and, although Frome Town were thought to be close to securing his services, he insists he has not made a decision on his future yet.

He said: “I would like to have stayed and scored as many goals as last season.

“I had eight already so I felt I could’ve done that but the manager wanted to play a different way so it was probably right (to go).

“I’m speaking to a few teams. I don’t want to be sitting around, I want to keep playing.

“I really enjoyed playing for the club. You never know what can happen, maybe I will play for Yate again one day.”

Meanwhile, Yate’s longest serving player Jake Cox has turned down the chance to join Winterbourne United permanently after playing in their 5-3 win over Street in the Western League Premier Division on Saturday.

Cousins has a full squad to choose from to face Bridgwater and has been buoyed by the last two performances, when Yate beat Wantage 3-0 and narrowly lost at title favourites Merthyr.

He said: “We’ve got to take positives from our last two games and have belief and confidence.

“Merthyr said we were the best team they’ve played, we caused them problems and they were full of credit for us.

“If we can produce the levels of effort from Merthyr against regular teams then we should be up there.”