After last weekend's excellent result, today was really a case of "after the Lord Mayor's Show". A poor performance was rewarded with a truly disappointing result in our last home game at the Varsity this season.
The first half was a coach's nightmare. We were sloppy in possession, slow to the challenge, weak in the tackle and poor in our decision making. As a result we found ourselves exposed in all areas of the pitch...... in particular defence where we were regularly at sixes and sevens as we tried desperately to cope with W&Ms speed of passing and turn of pace. Despite this, we gifted W&M their first goal when Nathan fumbled a basic-looking catch into his own net. Minutes later we had our only real chance of the game when Chris Clement was put through but his shot rebounded off the crossbar. We then suffered a period of intense pressure where our defence was appalling but our goalkeeper outstanding as Nathan redeemed himself with a number of excellent saves when we left their strikers acres of time and space in our area to control the ball and pepper our goal with shots. Shortly before half time a poor clearance from Nathan was completely mis-kicked by Marcus into the path of the W&M striker who slotted home.
Strong words were said at half time - the boys have set their own standards in the last two games and these were sadly lacking today - and at the start of the second half the boys seemed to have responded. However, just when it looked like we were turning the game round, we were again undone by the quick pace of the W&M attackers who exposed gaps in our defence and then finished in style to make it 3-0. To their credit we continued to try and create chances but to little effect. W&M wrapped up the game with a fourth goal that summed up our match. The referee amazingly interpreted a full stretch, last ditch tackle as a deliberate back pass and from the subsequent free kick our wall disintegrated like a pack of cards and a pretty weak shot flew in at the near post. Scandalous refereeing and even more scandalous defending!!
This really was not good enough today. As a coach I am bitterly disappointed - as should the players be. In previous weeks we have shown the qualities in our play but today we were not undone by a better footballing team but we were guilty of carelessness, sloppiness and laziness - qualities that I do not expect to see in any of my teams and certainly not repeated for the remainder of the season. The boys must lift their heads now, put this behind them, learn the lessons and take their recent good form, this game aside, into their next match.
Man of the Match - n/a
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