After two good results to start the season, Welling United were brought down to earth with a comprehensive defeat against Bath City.

When speaking after the game, Welling United manager Mark Goldberg pulled no punches. “Very disappointing performance.” he said. “We’ve been playing against teams that are direct and I think we set ourselves out too deep and we didn’t play the way that we should have played against the team that we came across.

“I took responsibility to a certain extent for the fact that I didn’t have a natural holding midfielder available for me and I took a risk and played a player that’s not a natural holding midfielder there. We’ve had a chat about it. I probably could have made the changes earlier than I did. I saw what I had to do at half time. By then it was obviously too late.

“But at the same time, there’s no excuse for the way we conceded both goals. The first goal from the set piece was poor. We allowed both the flick on and the goal at the far post. We could have done a lot better to defend that.

“And then obviously, Luke Rooney with the penalty. It was a silly soft goal to give away. Then they’re confident and they’re on the ball and they are passing around and spraying it about and we haven’t really set ourselves up the way to play against a passing team so at the end of the day I’m going to take as much responsibility as I can.”

Expectations had started to grow after the two opening results but Goldberg has his feet grounded. He said “This is our third game. No-one said that we were going to go out there and start with a new squad, new coaching staff, and take the league by storm. We never thought we would. It would be foolish for anybody that got carried away with the first two games.

“We don’t get carried away when we win and we don’t get carried away when we lose because we learn from it. Today could be an important milestone in the team understanding each other and what we need to do. We’ve had a really good chat amongst ourselves and I really do believe in the lads and I think we will get it right.”

Holding midfielder Connor Dymond was missing through injury as explained by Goldberg who said “He took a dead leg the other night and it was a bit too soon to risk him so he could be available on Tuesday.”

However, if he is not ready, Goldberg may consider Dquame Copeland for a full debut having come on at half time against Bath. “I thought Dquame came on and did a splendid job in there.” he said. “I’d never had that opportunity to see him play there. It was something that I felt that I wanted to do all pre-season. Whoever you are, whatever the standard of football, you do need to protect your back four and I take responsibility for today.”

Continuing about Copeland, he said “He’s a great asset because he can play right back, centre half and centre midfield and he’s only young. He’s a little gem.”

Speaking about Jack Jebb’s injury, Goldberg said “His groin is not quite ready. Whether he’ll be ready for Tuesday I don’t know. We’ve got to manage him. It’s a long season ahead.”

Welling will travel to Billericay Town on Tuesday night hoping to rectify Saturday’s performance.