RAMSBOTTOM manager Mike Kelly has hit back at suggestions that he is on his way out of the club.

Former Rams player Chris Willcocks is being touted as a possible replacement if Kelly got the boot but Kelly slammed the suggestion.

"Everybody wants my job," he said. "They see that I have been doing it for five minutes and that we are not as successful as last season but people think they can come in and the wage bill is massive but it isn't.

"Chris (Willcocks) is doing me a favour at the moment, he will be out injured for the rest of the season and he is doing a bit of coaching.

"The chairman gets calls all the time from people asking if there's a vacancy at Ramsbottom but I am going nowhere.

"I have told the players that they might not think I am doing a good job but I am doing it my own way and in a few weeks some of those players won't be at the club.

"I have told them it is either them or me and it won't be me."

Kelly said the attitude of some players left a lot to be desired.

"Some individuals' attitudes are not right. They have come from Sunday League football and they still behave like they're there.

"At training you get the same people turning up week after week and they have the desire.

"But if players are going to treat it like Sunday football then that's where they should go back to.

"Some of them are taking the mickey, I know because I was a footballer once too and I've used all the excuses myself."

Ramsbottom travel to Fleetwood in NWCL Division One tomorrow but the manager will have one eye on Tuesday's Worthington Challenge Trophy quarter final against Clitheroe on Tuesday night.

"That is a very important game because it is all we are playing for now this season. We are not going to win the league. I am going to change things around but I don't want to say too much because I know Mr Sculpher (Clitheroe manager Lee Sculpher) will be reading this.

"We are leaking too many goals, two a game on average and it is too much to ask of the forwards to score three every game, no matter how good our strikers David Yorke-Robinson and Russell Brierley are."

Kelly received more bad news this week when it was revealed that Dave Roach is probably out for the season.

"That is a blow for the rest of the players," said Kelly. "But we are not going to go down so I am looking to next season now and I hope we can pick up as many points as possible between now and the end of the season."