Welling United’s away match woes struck again as they went down at Dulwich Hamlet.

Manager Steve King opted for a different formation but his team struggled to create many clear cut chances and fell to another defeat on the road.

After the game he struggled to explain why there was such a difference in their home form and results on the road. “I can’t quite put my finger on it.” King said. “We’ve tried different systems. 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1. We’ve tried 3-5-2. We’ve tried everything. I can’t put my finger on it.”

Speaking about the game he said “We started well. I thought that we were the better team to start with. I was disappointed with their goal, a scrappy goal, and the game sort of petered out from there.”

He then went on to give his views on the major talking incident when Dulwich goalkeeper Preston Edwards handled outside the area but escaped with a yellow card. “We started the second half on the front foot.” he said “The goalkeeper’s got to go. It was a straight red card. You can’t handball the ball like that and catch it outside the penalty area especially when Jack Barham is the other side of their two centre halves.

“He’s going to get to the ball first if the goalkeeper doesn’t catch it. It’s a straight red card with forty minutes to go. It’s a different game with ten men, no goalkeeper, different game. It’s central of the penalty area as well.

“They got a scrappy second goal. It ricocheted to the boy in the box and he scored. For the last ten minutes we had a right go, scored, then there was a shout for a penalty when we’ve got a shot off and the geezer’s put his arm out. The ref said ‘I saw it but he’s too close, the player. I just think we didn’t get decisions today.”

Although Welling had more of the possession and territorial advantage plus a high number of corners, especially in the first half, they created very few clear cut chances. However, Brendan Kiernan missed one early on. “Brendan got through one-on-one and should have scored.” said King.

“Bread and butter for Brendan” he continued. “Other than that I can’t really say we had too many chances. Final ball in could have been better. We got in some great positions but the crosses went off the pitch. They didn’t have too many chances either. They had three. One that Dan (Wilks) saved and the others they scored.”

Wilks’ save drew special praise from King. He said “Dan’s pulled off one of the best saves I’ve ever seen in football. It was an unbelievable save. The guy (Dipo Akinyemi)’s hit it as true as anything and how he’s got that over the bar, I don’t know. It was a fantastic save.”

Although only playing with one out and out striker, King said that it was an attacking formation that he put out. “I went 4-3-3 with three in midfield and Gavin (McCallum) and Brendan off Millsy (Danny Mills). They went 4-4-2 which they don’t ever play normally. They normally play 5-3-2 so we changed it at half time to go 4-4-2.”

Once again, Welling were unable to fill their substitutes bench with only three named. With Julien Anau, Jack Jebb, Nassim L’Ghoul and Richard Orlu injured and Mekhi McLeod no longer at the club, it’s tough for King. “We’re not allowed to bring anyone else in so it’s what we’ve got.” he said.

None of the injured players are expected to return on Tuesday night when Welling visit Oxford City. “Then we’ve got Torquay at home. It doesn’t get any easier but we’ve got to keep going. It’s all we can do.”

Images courtesy of Dave Budden