We continued our dip in form yesterday by losing badly to a poor team.
Last weekend we played a team in a higher division who were technically similar to us and we almost held our own, whereas this weekend we played a team that we could comfortably outplay on our day.
Firstly we did not have all of our players available, but this is not an excuse at all as I feel we have enough quality in our squad to be about to win even with a weakened squad.
Secondly we underestimated the small size of the pitch and fielded a midfield heavy 4-2-3-1 formation which was never going to work on such a compact and gravelly pitch.
Football wise we found ourselves easily intimidated on the ball and were poor under pressure which led to us conceeding two soft early goals.
To make matters worse Stubbo twisted his ankle and had to come off and the team had to adjust again.
We changed to a 4-4-2 after the substitution and we found that the extra width and less congestion in the middle made us play a lot more fluidly in patches but unfortunately we conceded a soft third goal shortly after the change.
At the end of the second half Matt Roberts curled in a flukey free kick from wide to give us hope.
We started the second half well and had several one on one opportunities to score which we unfortunately could put in the back of the net.
Despite starting to play well we conceded our fourth soft goal and only then did we start to pick up the pace and urgency and start to play neat triangles and show what we can do.
Some poor defending cost as a needless fifth but shortly afterwards Ralph Stansfield drove a placed shot into the net to bring the score to 5-2 at full time.
Although it was a loss I feel that in the long term this game will help us, it highlighted our main weaknesses and gives us something to work on in time for our double header with West Totton coming up.
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