Defeat at Salisbury ended Welling United’s four game Vanarama National League South unbeaten run.After the match, Rod Stringer gave his thoughts, to Mark Doig.

He said, “I was pleased with our performance. I thought we played some good football. We missed too many chances in the second half and we’ve rued the chance.”

Expanding on that he continued “I thought we actually played really well in the conditions, It’s really open here and I felt we had to deal with it (strong wind) first half, they had to deal with it second half and today I just think it’s about us not taking our chances. I think that they’ve had a little bit of a head start with the first goal. We will watch it back as I think it’s about five yards offside but the linesman’s allowed it to go on.

“Up until then, I thought we’d started really well. We had positive start. I thought we were in battle out there. We were winning a lot of first and second balls and I thought that we were playing really well against that wind. I thought we kept the ball quite well and I think we still had half a dozen corners in the first half.”

He continued “So, we go in one-nil down against a goal that I don’t think should have been allowed, we came back out in the second half and we should have been three-one up, four one, up. We’ve had some great chances. I remember Martell (Taylor-Crossdale), I remember one that fell to Josh (Redfearn) and he put it wide, we had one with a follow up to TJ (Bramble), we had a follow up to Zain Walker and you could only see it going one way.

“As I just said to the boys there, it’s about putting teams to bed, eradicating your mistakes, then they broke away and to be fair to the lad he’s taken his chance well for their second goal, a lot harder chance than any of our misses and then you think you’re two-nil down, dead and buried. We get back out here. Theo (Alexandrou)’s come on and won us the penalty and Genie (Kennedy) despatched it very well and it was all about us again. We made a substitution, changed the shape, to try and force it and to get Dan Martin some minutes, play Chiori (Johnson) on the right side and play a system that we’ve played pretty much all season and then, unfortunately, the ball goes down to the other end and Granty (Anthony Grant) says it’s not a penalty but you can’t let someone get inside you like that in the box.”

Stringer added “People will look at that result and go ‘ooh, three-one’ but I think they probably had three shots on goal, One was five yards offside, one was a penalty, and one was a good execution. It doesn’t sound great for us but did we put in a shift? I thought we did. Were we better with the ball than them? Yes we were. Did we have more opportunities to score more goals than them? Yes we did.

“I think if Martell scores that one where he goes through, that puts it one-one. I think after that they’d then have to sit in and bank up and we’d keep recycling the ball and keep getting down the side and behind them and creating chances but that got taken away from us because he never scored.”

In the closing stages, Salisbury did whatever was necessary to get the points but Stringer had no issue with them doing so. He said “We had to face a lot of game management here. Goalie’s going down, booting the ball out, but I don’t blame them. They’re desperate to get the three points, they game managed it, the officials allowed it but I’m not going to harp on about that. I’ve come away with some really good performances from some of the players today and I thought, as a team we looked quite exciting. If I was a neutral here today I’d look at that and think ‘Welling are a good side’, but you have to know how to score goals and when you don’t, the games never beyond.”

On the injury front, although not fully fit yet, Johnson and Martin should back in contention for a starting place soon. Stringer said ‘Whether they start in the next game, my argument is we haven’t got forwards who are scoring so maybe those two might give us a better platform. Elliott Long did his ankle last week and is out for possibly a month.” 

Images courtesy of Dave Budden