Captains View- Winterton Rangers Review

A few players were given their chance to claim a first team place, due to us missing four key players, which definitely didn't help on the day.

We did start the game very well, creating some good chances. (Matt) Mathers almost scored with a great header from a corner, only for the effort to be accidentally blocked off the line by our own player, Levi Maturine.

Shortly afterwards Anil Singh hit the post with a decent effort, and unfortunately for us we couldn't tuck the rebound away.

This league is so competitive, and any team can beat anyone on a given day. We didn't take our chances and make our early dominance count, and as I've said before if you don't take your chances you will get punished.

In that first 25 minutes we controlled the game, but after that it was all Winterton.

Some sloppy passing by us in the middle of the park led to Winterton's attacker scoring their opener in the first half.

Despite going into the second half 1-0 down, we knew we still had a chance of getting back into the game. With that being said, we did struggle due to four or five key players being missing, and (Luke) Harrop being subsituted just after the break due to a bad injury.

Winterton were definitely the better side in the second half, although I do think their second goal was offside and a handball.

We didn't look like scoring in that second half, and we didn't look after the ball at all. We didn't create anything, and Winterton fully deserved their third goal if I'm honest.

They worked harder than us and looked like they wanted the win more than us. We were punished for wasting chances and possession, so I have to say well done to them for the win.

I am gutted to not win, like we have been doing so consistently this season, but we have to be realistic, in this league you can't afford to have as many key players missing as we did.

Yes, we have a very good squad but we didn't have the strength in depth we usually have on Saturday, and Winterton punished us.

I believe we have (Chris) Lever, Jonny (Irving), and Charlie (Flaherty) back for our cup game on Wednesday night, which will be a massive boost.

Although the league is our main priority, we will definitely be looking to put in a good performance on Wednesday, and potentially progress to the next round of the cup.

We will hopefully get some confidence back and then look to get back to winning ways in the league when we travel to Brigg Town.

See you at the game,
Sam Bradley (Club captain)

Updated 16:30 - 1 Sep 2019 by Danial Ahmed