Inspired substitutions helped Welling United to three well merited points over Hungerford Town.
Those well points took Welling to the top of the Vanarama National League South. Wings manager Steve King said “Any win’s a good win, playing good, bad or indifferent. Three points is what we deserved to be fair.”
He continued “It wasn’t the best first half. (It was a) great goal. Five passes from the back, all the way through the team, and a great finish by Brad, fantastic finish.
“We didn’t really take it on from there. They were always going to have a half chance and they did (for their goal) and it was of our own making. We told them at half time that they needed to step the tempo up, start moving the ball quicker and we’d cause them problems and we did”
Explaining the problems in the first half he said@ “What you’ve got to look at is that they came with a certain shape. They came and played a diamond in the middle so they had almost for central midfielders. We only had Dave (Ijaha) and J.P. (John Paul Kissock) so we kept trying to get the wingers in to be four v. four. Naturally the wingers wanted to go out because they’re creative players and they cause havoc for teams so it was a balancing act.”
When talking about the effect that the substitutions had, King said: “That’s what you ask the subs to do. We’ve kept the same team for three games and we needed to freshen the side up. Danny (Mills)’s done his bit and that’s what you want from someone coming off the bench, to make an impact and say ‘I’m here’ but I’ve got to say I thought Bradley (Goldberg) coming in for his first start in five games was outstanding today.”
It was not just the result that was important for King. After having been knocked out of the F.A. Trophy in midweek, he wanted a performance too. “I don’t think that we were quite at the races during the week.” he conceded. “Sometimes it doesn’t happen. In the second half today I thought that we were different class at times.”
Although Welling are now out of the F.A. Cup and Trophy, the defeat of Hungerford kept an excellent league run going. King said: “We’ve only lost one game since 14th August in the league and we’re now in December. That’s a helluva run. The boys have done fantastic, eighteen games in.
“We might not reach the standards that we set ourselves some weeks but to grind out results sometimes when we’re not playing brilliantly is just as important.
“We’ve got the best home record in the league.” he continued. “We’re top of the form guide in the last five games. We’re top of the form guide in the last ten games.”
At last, players are returning from injury and King couldn’t be more delighted. “We’re getting players back and that’s what we want. Competition for places. We’ve got five central midfield players now. Dave, J.P., Montel (Agyemang), Julian (Anau) will be back net week, (Arnaud) Mendy was ill today, had the flu.”
King confirmed that he hoped to organise some training friendlies to ensure that all the squad would get playing time but conceded that there may be the need to loan players out. “Probably, one of the centre halves will have to go out and get some games.
“At the moment we’ve got five centre halves and one’s going to have to go out and get some games. We want keep him around us at the club because I think it’s important, as it’s shown in my judgement, that we’ve needed all of those players at different times with injuries and people have covered people. It’s just to get them game time that is important.”