Match Report

The harsh truth about this fixture is that we were outplayed and made some crucial individual errors at key moments in the game. We were missing some players through injury but the team that took the field definitely had the potential to get something out of this fixture.

Our day got off to a bad start after conceding a penalty within the first 10 minutes after a clumsy challenge in the box, the ref had no choice and duly awarded the spot kick. Fortunately for us Burkett made a tremendous, acrobatic save from the penalty and kept the scores level. This should have provided a platform for us to build on but it didn’t happen. We conceded another penalty just 5 minutes later and this time Burkett couldn’t save us. We came in at half time 1-0 down and in truth it could have been more.

We started the 2nd half in better spirits and there seemed to be a bit more purpose about our approach. But just when we looked like we were getting into our stride we made another error that led to a goal and went 0-2 behind.
We couldn’t carve out the all important openings today and looked devoid of any real creativity, Knights did a good job on us today though. We couldn’t keep the ball long enough to do anything with it and gave it away far too cheaply and seldom troubled their keeper. We battled hard but it just didn’t happen for us, they scored a third late on which was a real decent finish.

I guess if you give away 2 penalties in the first 15 minutes you’re always going to be on the back foot and we just never got a foothold in the game at any time.

There’s a total of 26 games to play in this division and we’ve played only 5 of them so far, so there’s plenty of time for things to change. Character, team spirit and self belief are really what’s needed now, they can win you a game if you make your mind up to use them, we need to stand up and be counted now, we cannot afford to shirk anything. Not having been able to choose the same starting 11 hasn’t helped, but like i say guts and spirit are required now, not the sort of attitude displayed by some players that have left since the start of the season.

We were all a bit dejected after the game, understandably, but we are capable of better things, we’ve just got to bring it out in our play from now on.

We didn’t do man of the match votes today but if it was down to me alone I’d give it to George Burkett for his brilliant penalty save.

Keep your chins up lads, we can turn this around - BELIEVE IT!!