THE time for being nice is over – Paul Cox wants his Barrow AFC players to start showing their nasty side.

The Bluebirds fell to a third successive defeat on Tuesday night, as they went down 1-0 to Southport at Holker Street after a limp display.

Cox spoke many times early in the season about how nice his squad were to work with, how they all got along really well as a unit – but now he wants them to put that to one side and develop a mean streak to rip them out of their losing run and back to being National League promotion contenders.

That could mean bringing in new players not afraid to upset the applecart, but it definitely means the current squad reassessing where they stand.

“When you get a group of nice people – and I’m working with a group of nice people – their willingness at the start of the season, their willingness to adapt, to learn and listen, that was at a stage when we were free and there was no pressure on us. There was an openness about them,” said Cox, whose side exited the FA Cup to Rochdale last weekend and who face Matlock Town in the FA Trophy on Saturday.

“Now, I want to see characters. When I say they are too nice as a group, on Tuesday it epitomised that in terms of how simple we were to play against and how unsophisticated we probably were when we had the ball.

“I think we need some bodies bringing in with a different kind of mentality to what we have got.

“I’ve spoken about my team at Mansfield, and they probably didn’t have as much technical ability as this team, but we wouldn’t have allowed what happened on Tuesday to happen.

“The people who saw us when we came to Barrow a few times and played will know what I’m talking about. That was very much a horrible, nasty juggernaut, and if anybody showed an ounce of weakness, then we would run all over them.

“We haven’t got that same mindset yet, but what we have have got away with is being a well disciplined unit.

“We need one or two to stand up and be counted now, and probably bring out an alter-ego in them. Or, one or two added to the squad who aren’t scared to upset other individuals.

“There are massive decisions to be made now. That’s not me talking after just one game, that’s what I’ve been thinking these last few weeks, the energy levels, consistency in our play, and the ability not to be sidetracked by discussions about who we are and where we are.

“Sometimes, the razzmatazz of being on TV, being in front of the cameras, in the limelight, in front of big crowds, it can pull you away from your path. I want to see these boys restart themselves, otherwise I will have to make some horrible decisions, because that wasn’t good enough on Tuesday night.”

While asking for that ‘horrible’ side to show itself, Cox also recognises a need to go back to what made Barrow a success for so long this season.

Before the loss to Gateshead on New Year’s Eve , they were 26 games unbeaten across all competitions, but he saw signs they were moving away from what had started them out on that run.

Cox said: “We need a little bit of the old us back. There seems to be a lack of belief that we had earlier in the season.

“Some players can believe their own hype, some read their own press. It’s very apparent to me now that we need to get all our feet back down on the ground as quickly as possible and get back to the old us.

“We were poetry in motion – you don’t go 26 games unbeaten without being a very good team. But we seem to have lost that team.

“All of a sudden now, we’re a big scalp as well. Southport celebrated like they had won the league on Tuesday night, just by beating us.

“It was our first defeat at home in the league for a very long time, and it hurts. If anyone is not hurting, I would want to question why they are in the game.

“For me, we’ve travelled a long way very quickly, we’ve had an amazing time, but anyone who knows me know this is all hot air and wind, and we now need to get back to being us, the group of people we know we can be, and the group we know is capable of being very successful this season. That has to happen very, very quickly if we are to stand a chance.”