On Saturday, Welling United visited in form Oxford City and returned home empty handed leaving manager Warren Feeney disappointed.

After the match, Warren Feeney said “I said to the boys in there (changing room) I can’t believe we lost it to be honest. I thought it was pretty even. I’m not going to criticise Miles (Roberts) because he’s been brilliant for me all season. I said we’ve got to cut out the mistakes but I’m not going to criticise him.

“The second goal was too easy, about a minute after half time and the third goal was just mis-control, we’re going for the game. I think that the turning point was probably, I’m not going to criticise Taylor (Maloney) for missing a penalty, but we had a wee bit of momentum there and had we scored at the right time, I think that the game’s changed. There’s a lot of sad faces in there.”

At the half time break, Welling were one-down but still well in the game. However, that changed when Oxford scored immediately after the restart.

Feeney stated “Concentration levels is massive in football. If you don’t concentrate for ninety minutes you leave yourself open and it was at the wrong time. But at the end of the day you can’t dwell on it. We’ve got to get back on a run again with a big performance on Saturday.”

Once again, George Alexander looked dangerous but wasn’t able to complete the full ninety minutes. Feeney added “George has got to get his fitness up. There’s a lot of games and he hasn’t been playing. He felt his hamstring a few weeks ago so we’ve got to be careful with him. There’s a lot of games coming up in February and he will get fitter and fitter and fitter every game he is playing.”

Aaron Barnes returned and also struggled as the game went on. “Barnsey, he’s been out.” said Feeney “He’s back in the team. There were some players out today who we missed but that’s part and parcel with football so we’ve got to move on.”

He came in due to an injury to Rob Howard and Aaron Powell also missed out. Due to suspensions, James Dunne and Stefan Payne will miss the next two games, but Feeney was in no mood to complain about the absences.

“There’s plenty there who can fill in for them and we’ve just got to take it on the chin at the minute.” He confirmed.

“You look at your back four. It was Kodi (Lyons-Foster)’s first game at Chelmsford and we haven’t had the same back four since because of injuries. Rob and Aaron missing today didn’t help because you want a settled back four but there’s good enough players to step in. We’ve just got to dust them down and try and get them ready for next week.”

Next week, Welling visit Slough Town, but before that they have an exhibition match against American Universities at Park View Road. “We’ve got to make sure we’re right, we’re one hundred percent.” He stated.

“There will be a game on Monday for the boys fitness, to get them ready, with the Americans but everything’s based on the league, we’ve got to keep going to the end. We’ve still got a couple of games in hand.”

That will be a useful opportunity to give some of his fringe players a run out. Feeney confirmed “I think they need that wee bit of fitness because you never know when they might be called upon. We’ve got to make sure they’re fit enough. It will be a good exercise on Monday night. We’re looking forward to it.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.