Five unanswered goals shared between Ade Azeez and Stefan Payne enabled Welling United to thrash in-form Oxford City leaving manager Warren Feeney thrilled.
Coming into the game Oxford had won their last four without conceding but they had no answer to Welling’s firepower.
Unsurprisingly, Wings’ manager, Warren Feeney, was pleased with the outcome. “We knew it was going to be a tough game.” He said. “They were in the playoffs, rightly, last season. We’ve watched them. They’ve only conceded three goals this year but we had a game plan that we worked on this week with the players and you could look at it and say that it worked brilliantly today.”
“Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t but the players listened to everything I said and I think that over the performances of late we deserved that, it was coming but we’re not going to get carried away.
“Whether you win one-nil or five like we did. I said to the boys to be ruthless. You look at the Liverpool’s, you look at the Man City’s, they don’t care who they play, they go bang against anyone, and I told them that, but really I’m pleased with the clean sheet first and foremost.”
Their fourth win in five games has them in sixth place in the early season table and Feeney continued “We’re probably a little bit ahead of where we’re expected, to be honest, because it’s difficult with the amount of players we brought in. You’ve got to get them to gel but they’re a great bunch. There’s a great team spirit in them as well.
“We’ve disappointed players, but it’s a forty-six game season, they’ve got to be ready, but I’m just pleased for everyone today. We are moving forward as a club on the park and off the park and the big thing was to get a home win today and I think, as well, the clean sheet was the big one for me.”
Ade Azeez scored a hat-trick and Stefan Payne a brace, and as a former striker himself, Feeney is enjoying working with them. “I tried to bring Ade in when I was the Newport manager years ago.”
He admitted. “You look at Payney today. The two of them closed down, chased right to the last minute. It was a fantastic hat-trick by Ade but it was what I said to him at Dulwich on Monday when he set the goal up for Amadou and he (Payne) did exactly the same thing today with the header.
“That for me is a goal. It’s unselfish, it’s good quality. I’m really pleased for the two boys but I couldn’t single anyone out today. I thought that as a team performance the boys were outstanding with young Papadopoulos as well. He’s only nineteen, the kid, he’s a baby, but he’s playing like a twenty-five year old. From the back today, right the whole way through to the front, I couldn’t single any of them. I’m just pleased with the collective team performance.”
Gate numbers are up, too, with 965 in attendance for the game. Feeney said “It was great to see the kids running around in Welling shirts. We want to hit that thousand mark so come on fans, let’s get another thirty-five through the gate. We want to play football. We want to play enjoyable football. I met a guy here who usually goes to Millwall, it was his first time and he said ‘I’m definitely coming back now’ and that’s what we want. We want to put on a show but the important thing is to win football games and now the boys have certainly done that.”
Having been four-nil up at the break, Feeney was keen that Welling didn’t ease up, and winning the second half was also important to him. “It’s difficult.” He said “We’ve been in those positions. Last year at Eastbourne we were 3-0 down, you look at Liverpool and AC Milan in the Champions League final, games aren’t over. They’re ninety minutes games. You can say it only takes a couple of minutes to score goals.
“I said to the boys you’ve got to be ruthless. I thought we were ruthless today in every department. (We) Probably could have had a couple more in the second half but when you’ve players putting them in like that, and you’ve got two strikers scoring goals, you’ve got to feed them at every opportunity. I don’t like sitting off teams. The game plan was to go forward and we certainly did that.”
Azeez’s hat-trick meant additional costs to the club and Feeney joked “That’s the worrying thing for the club. I’ll have to get on to the chairman and the bosses because it’ll cost us a fortune with their goals and the balls. There’s another match-ball gone now to Ade. You want strikers scoring goals. They’ve got a great return so far and they’re a joy to work with, and that’s the big thing.”
Feeney doesn’t expect there to be problem with keeping the team grounded after the five star performance. He said “They’re good pros. We’ve got a good changing room in there of disciplined boys who’ve been around the leagues. We’ve got experienced players in there, winners in there, and that’s the big thing.
“They’ll know themselves that it’s only the seventh game of a forty-six game season. Football can come round and kick you right up the backside and that’s the one thing that these players know. We’ll go away and enjoy it tonight and we’ll look forward to the week ahead.”
Pictures supplied by Dave Budden.