Karl Robinson has told his Salford players to have a winning mentality if they want to remain at the club after they were held to a frustrating 1-1 draw with Colchester.
The Ammies looked on course for a fifth victory in nine games thanks to Matt Smith’s first-half opener – his 22nd goal of the season.
However, a battling Colchester side snatched a point thanks to young substitute Bradley Ihionven’s late strike.
Salford, whose eight-match unbeaten start under new boss Robinson came to an end at the weekend, could not source a late winner, despite their best efforts.
“We’re here to win and these players are paid to win,” Robinson said when asked about his side’s aim for the season.
“They’re professional athletes and that’s my mentality. If they don’t believe in that, then they can go.
“Tonight, it’s probably a fair result, but we were nowhere near our best. It was an under-par performance with stupid actions.
“When you look at how fragmented we were with the amount of players we’ve had out, I can’t be too disappointed.
“But I’m not in the industry to draw games so there’s so many elements of our game that could’ve been better.
“The players in the dressing room are down because they know they’ve underperformed and missed another opportunity to get three points.
“It was a real fight to put a team on that pitch; they competed, but we’ve not seen the quality or fluidity that we’ve seen from a Salford City team.”
Meanwhile, Colchester continued their mini-revival under new boss Danny Cowley.
The U’s, who sit five points above the Sky Bet League Two relegation zone, have now lost only one of eight games since their change in the dugout.
“There’s no point me worrying about other teams because I can’t control their destinies, but I can only control ours,” said Cowley.
“I’ll put all my energy and my efforts into helping the team; they needed lifting at half-time and we have to fight in those moments.
“We didn’t deserve to go in 1-0 down, but we did, and you have to then respond. And certainly in the latter part of the game, we did that.
“Credit to the players, but we just couldn’t win it. After two tough away games and on two difficult pitches, we take the points and move on.
“We’re trying to win every game because that’s our mentality. We’ve now only had one loss in eight, so we are becoming a really competitive team.
“But we’re working really hard to try and turn these draws into wins.
“It’s just about us; we’re trying to get to 50 points as that will be enough for us to retain our status.”