Ahead of Saturday’s league match at Halesowen Town (3:00 KO), manager Tim Flowers has looked at our opponents and provided an insight into our preparation. He starts with his thoughts on our most recent result, versus Redditch…
“Having seen the Redditch game back and reflecting on it, I thought 11 vs 11, we acquitted ourselves well. We’ve created two or three big chances – we hit the bar with a good delivery and it could have gone anywhere, Tyrone Lewthwaite went clean through and lost his footing, and Josh Ezewele got in across the front post and maybe could have scored.
“I thought we limited them to stuff from range – the sending off meant they changed shape – they clearly had to – into two banks of four, and the half seemed to disappear very quickly.
“Second half, as you’d expect, we had a lot of the ball. Billy Shaw had his goal disallowed for handball, we scored from the penalty, then Luke Benbow got in at the back stick and that would have sealed the game.
“Then we get done from a sucker punch from the second phase of a set piece – we’ve lost concentration around the back, not marking properly, and we got punished.
“All in all, we did alright – I think we played okay. I thought we looked comfortable in possession, and created chances like we did away at Stortford, but we have to start taking a few more of them when they arrive.
“We had a tough cup game on the Tuesday at Worcester and then got a point at home against a team that started the afternoon in fourth position – they’re there because they’ve had a really strong first half of the season and they’ve got some good players.
“Did I see an improvement? I did, yes. Some of the things we’re trying to do, I saw, and we were probably unfortunate not to win it.
“Halesowen is always going to be tough – good support, a lovely pitch, and they’ve got some really good players. They’re one of a clutch of teams at the top end who are having a real good go to get, at a minimum, into the play-offs.
“We’ve had two training sessions at our ground this week; Tuesday was more physical based – they worked really hard and it was a tough session. Thursday was more about shape and restarts. The lads have worked hard and we go into another stiff test tomorrow.
“We’re currently in a run of games against teams towards the higher end of the table – and then we have a fortnight off where we can sit down and re-evaluate. We’ve managed to bring bodies in and they’ve fitted in well. Tyrone Lewthwaite looked a threat on Saturday, Theo Robinson has joined us, Jack Kelly has had two really solid games and Ethan Young has settled in well – the defenders have bedded into a different shape well.
“In the two weeks without a game, we can look at what we need going into the next set of games, which will come thick and fast.
“Looking ahead for this year – we need to try and put some results together to pull us away from the foot of the table. There’s a glut of teams, perhaps four or five, that are four or five points ahead of us. We need to try and reel them back in and make it jittery for them a little bit.
“Fixtures can run out very quickly – you look at it and think there’s plenty of football left, but they’ll soon run out, so we need to act now.”
