Ahead of Saturday’s league match at St Ives (3:00 KO), manager Tim Flowers has looked at the opposition and preparations for it. He starts with reflections on our most recent match…
We stood off Halesowen and allowed them to get the ball in behind us – we didn’t deal with that well and we’re showing the most dangerous striker in the league inside for both goals, which is a cardinal sin; when strikers of that quality are around the box, you usher them away. The information we have states that – you have to apply that in a game and we didn’t. We got punished by those errors, of which both of their goals were.
We didn’t really lay a glove on them in the first half; second half was a huge difference – we got the ball in behind them and, all of a sudden, they were all over the place. But for the width of a post and a very good save from Kyle Belmonte’s strike, we could have gotten something out of the game but, in the end, we give ourselves a mountain – again – and fall short.
It was a fantastic crowd and an unbelievable effort from our support to turn out and get behind the boys in those numbers – we thank them so much and I’m doing everything I can possibly try to get those all important points on the board and I’ll continue to do so.
Tomorrow’s game at St Ives – our third last of the season. It’ll be tough – they ended a long winless run at Royston on Easter Monday, they got a recent impressive home draw with Spalding, and were unlucky against Harborough, where they were very competitive and gave them a good go at home.
It’s never an easy place to go, on their 3G. It’s a wide pitch, and we’re going to have to start quickly and defend properly, against a young team with legs, pace and energy up front, who want to work the ball through the thirds.
We’ve worked at being the best versions of ourselves that we can possibly be and we want to make it as uncomfortable for them as we possibly can. The lads are prepped and ready to go – they’ve seen lots of footage on them – how they play, who are the threats, where their strengths and weakness are – hopefully we can take that on board and exploit something.
After that, it’s Stratford away and Real Bedford at home. I’m sure this is going to go down to the wire and we’ve just got to keep working hard and believing – me and my staff have the utmost belief that the boys can do it – they’re a good bunch, they’re honest, they’re giving it everything they’ve got.
They’ve just got to execute that on the pitch, as they did a couple of weeks ago so spectacularly at Spalding, where we put in an outstanding performance – and we’ll be looking to do that again.”
