Missed chances and conceding from a set play again resulted in defeat for Welling United with Chippenham Town claiming all three points at Park View Road.

It was another difficult afternoon for Welling manager Brad Quinton. He described his emotions after the game as. “Very disappointed, annoyed, frustrated. Again we’ve had chance after chance and then we concede a corner. We’ve conceded four penalties and a free kick and a corner and it’s cost us points. I’m frustrated. Very frustrated.”

He continued “We’re not getting done by creative teams or them being better than us. We’re switching off and we’re letting people have the opportunity to score goals rather than being better than us. That’s personnel and obviously I spoke very thoroughly with the guys. We will be discussing where it went wrong.”

Although the goal that was conceded was avoidable, the real problem is the lack of a cutting edge up front but that is not through a lack of practice. Quinton said “We’ve done an hour and forty five minutes on Thursday night of pure shooting and none of them can say to me ‘we haven’t worked on it’. We’ve worked thoroughly and thoroughly and thoroughly. As a coach and as a manager you can’t do anything when players are getting those chances. They have to take the responsibility and it’s just killing us, it really is. So we will watch videos of the game and they can see where I’m coming from.”

Explaining how they lost their way after a good first half, Quinton said “We got deeper and deeper from the pressure of my young lads keep making mistakes so it invites pressure. The balls were going longer from us, which is unlike us and it was just coming straight back. I would say it was a game of two halves, really. We were outstanding in the first half and they were better than us in the second half but ultimately, the chances, it kills us and we’ve got to be honest, we need to be putting teams to bed and we haven’t been doing that.

“We stopped playing. We didn’t get hold of the ball. We didn’t put our foot on the ball. We didn’t pass forward, We didn’t talk. We didn’t get up but what we did was kept giving them the ball and that just invites pressure. We gave away three free kicks for fouls in the final third, needless fouls, needless fouls. It’s lazy and the responsibility was poor from individuals. Every game since Slough we’ve missed chance after chance after chance.”

There are plenty of games to come now and lots of points up for grabs. Quinton said “It’s now Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday all the way. We’re trying to tactically manage for games at a time but then people go into lockdown, isolation and you have to go and change people’s mentalities. It’s a lot to do with players. It’s affecting them.

“It’s great to see fans through the door today but I’m disappointed about how we’re not doing the ugly things. I’ve won this league, been promoted as a player, been promoted as a manager as well and these are the things that what they (Chippenham) did today gets you higher up and gets you into the play-offs. I’ve got a young team and they’ve got to learn that. You can be pretty but if you don’t put the ball in the back of the net you get punished and that happened.”

Nathan Green missed his first game of the season and Welling missed his bursts down the left. Quinton said “We had two players on fitness tests today. He didn’t pass it but he should be available for Tuesday. It was a bit of a precaution with him and the other one. If we put both on and they were both injured, they were going to be out longer term so it was more of a precaution.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.