Ahead of Saturday’s home match versus Leiston, manager Tim Flowers has looked at the opposition and talked about our latest signing. He starts with reflections on last Saturday’s win…
We come into the game off the back of a tremendous performance away at Leighton Town – it was always going to be difficult, as they’d had a new manager bounce with a very impressive 1-1 draw at Needham Market on the Tuesday before. I was fully aware of that. They’d signed some players in the lead up to the Needham game and our game, so there was an influx of personnel and I think they really targeted us as a chance to really kick on. But, credit to our boys, we were strong, we were prepared, we looked a good side, we looked physically intimidating, we were big and powerful, we had runners looking to go in behind and we were a threat from set pieces.
We weren’t without our faults – they got little bits and bobs that we gave them. I listened to their manager and he didn’t give us a lot of credit for what we’d done. We are a good side – there’s no doubt about that – and I think the scraps they got we gave them, and we’ve got to stop doing that, because it could be the Achilles Heel that finds us out.
But we were excellent – it was five and it could have been more; we had a couple of lobbed chances over the goalkeeper who was miles off his line in the first half and a couple of scrambles as well – it was good value, a good performance and we remain unbeaten away from home in the league. It’s an impressive record – I’m a nit picky sort of bloke, but you can’t hide away from the fact that the players deserve massive credit.
Football is a horrible game in that you say well done, but then you’ve got to move on and prove yourself again. We play against a Leiston team on Saturday that are free scoring and, at times, sometimes free conceding – you only have to look at the stats in the match preview to see that.
I know manager Chris Wigger – I’ve come up against his teams a few times and attacking-wise, they’re a huge threat. Adam Mills is a major threat – he’s in a rich vein of scoring form. Adam Marriott has played higher than the level, Harvey Sayer is an excellent player on the right hand side who got himself a move to Tamworth from Lowestoft a couple of years ago and Willie Clemons is lively too.
In that front area of the pitch – and the way they flood it with the full backs – you can see why they score goals. We’ve got to make sure we’re resilient and we’ve got some structure and we’re compact and we can deal with that – and then we have to punish them. And that’s not just Leiston, that’s every team really. We have to be spiteful when we go forward – control the ball and the game, which is what we’re going to try and do against a good side.
In terms of injuries, we’ll run late checks on Chris Hussey and Simeon Maye – both did partial amounts of work on Thursday, so I’m not sure if this one might be a bit too early for them.
We welcome Jermaine Hylton, who’s joined us. He played for me at Solihull Moors and he can be a real gamechanger. He’s played at a really good level, was at Hednesford with the boys last year, and he’s a good lad. It was great to see him at training – he looked sharp and he’s available to us tomorrow, which gives us some real options up top, including the two big boys and Laka, who has been absolutely outstanding.
We’re putting on a lot of events for Remembrance weekend, and we also have Hednesford fan Beth coming to visit us too, who has battled Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. It would be great if there was a big crowd there – I hope we can get up to the 1,000 mark, and we’ll try everything we’ve got to give the fans what they want. All credit has to go to the players – get behind them please, as you have done all season.
