Ahead of Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup match, at home to Bottesford Town (3:00 KO), manager Paul Smith has spoken about the match and the competition. He starts by reflecting on Tuesday’s agonising, yet encouraging, defeat to Telford…
“Tuesday night, even in defeat, left me a very satisfied manager.
It was by far our best performance of the season – a proper Step Three performance.
Against, in my opinion, the biggest club in the division, we not only deserved to get something but, having watched it back, I feel we deserved to win it.
Ultimately, the result will be the only thing that people will see going forward. That said, what’s important for me and us, as a club to grasp, is the performance.
We know we are a club in transition and we know we will win some and lose some this season – what’s crucial is we ingrain a way of playing, a belief, a culture of what we expect going forward, delivering performances you as fans can appreciate, even in defeat.
Tuesday was the first solid signs of that happening.
Tuesday delighted me, and the players deserve credit for taking on board the instructions they were given and executing the perfect game plan… nearly!
The players’ next barrier is to put those kind of performances in consistently. It’s a lot easier to go to a top level stadium and pitch like Telford with little pressure on you and put a good performance in. Good players, players that want to progress, need to do that on a cold Tuesday night on a ploughed field, away from home.
We lost, but the picture is much bigger than that for us, and I was as delighted as I could be with what the group did – they couldn’t have done anymore.
Tomorrow, we have a break from the league and welcome Bottesford Town – this is the furthest they’ve ever ventured in the FA Cup and huge credit goes to them for that.
Everyone outside both dressing rooms will look at this as being a comfortable home win, but football, and more so the FA Cup, doesn’t work that way.
They will come here thinking they have nothing to lose, which makes them dangerous, and it’s a free hit for them.
I’ve been in their shoes and turned some huge clubs over in my time at Halesowen in cup competitions; away at Halifax, at Maidenhead, at Barnet – all divisions higher than us at the time. It happens.
Added to that, any kind of complacency from my group could close the gap between the sides.
This has been explained to them in detail and it’s crucial the boys play at their optimum. If they do, then I feel we are good enough to get the result needed.
The FA Cup is a magnificent cup competition and, in every single round at this stage, there is an upset – we need to work hard and execute the game plan correctly to ensure it’s not us.”
