I was pleased in the end to take a point from the game at Nuneaton last weekend. When you’re down to 10 men, away from home, against a team in good form, you’ve got to be happy with a clean sheet. Whilst it was not the perfect defensive performance, there was plenty of effort and desire in the team to keep our clean sheet, especially after the red card and after conceding some poor goals recently. It was frustrating however that we were unable to create more in the game as we had plenty ball in the final third but our final pass or decision let us down on too many occasions.
We have a big weekend coming up with games on Saturday and Monday. We visit Salford on Saturday who sit top of the league. They have a good mix of quality, physical strength and ‘know how’ and as we enter in to the business end of the season where the pitches are difficult to play good football on, they have all the tools to go on and finish the season as champions. They have shown their quality at times this season with some big wins, but they’ve also come out on top in many tight games to win by the odd goal as we found out in the reverse fixture at Horsfall. They have strength in depth and can call on some excellent players not only in their starting 11, but off the bench also. They’re clearly on the rise and with the investment they’ve made in their squad and stadium, they don’t intend hanging around in our division for too long, but I’m confident that if we produce what we are capable of, we can go there and get a positive result.
Adam Smith joined us last week. He’s similar to one or two we already have in our squad who have suffered from injuries over the past few years which has restricted his game time, but if we can get him match fit, he can have a big part to play for the rest of the season.
Cheers
Mark