Phil Parkinson warned that players’ futures will be decided in the next few days after Altrincham followed up a creditable home draw against Notts County with a crushing Bank Holiday Monday defeat at Solihull Moors.

The Alty boss made no fewer than nine changes to Saturday’s starting line-up as he earmarked the Solihull game as an ideal opportunity for testing the strength of his squad.

After seeing his reshaped side ship three second-half goals to lose 4-0, he was in no doubt that decisive action was needed.

“It was always a possibility that the game could go that way, so I will have to take full responsibility for it,” he said. “The one positive from the weekend is we have given lads the opportunity to show they can play at this level and be at this club next season.

“To be fair, there were some really good individual performances, but, as a team, we let ourselves down badly, particularly in the second half.

“The goals we conceded were terrible. Solihull didn’t even have to work very hard to score them. But it does at least allow me to look at things and analyse who is going to take this club forward, because that’s what this process is all about.

“It hasn’t been a great day, but Neil Sorvel and I do now have a lot of food for thought. We will sit down this week, because we need to make some difficult decisions on certain individuals.

“There is no getting away from it. We are going to have to bring in some real quality in certain positions, and some people unfortunately will have to leave the club. We have to show, as a bare minimum, we can compete at this level, but we also have to be able to play the brand of football Neil and I want us to.

“This is a cruel, ruthless league, where no-one takes any prisoners, so we have to make sure we can compete and stand up to that. We will get that right – we will be competitive next year.”