We spoke with Luke Garrard after our narrow 1-2 loss at home to West Ham United U21, a game which saw Erico Sousa pull one back for the Wood after Michail Antonio netted twice for the Hammers.
I’d say that it’s another compilation of bad goals. Too often we’re giving opposition the opportunity to take the lead, and you see that in the first goal. We talk about decisions and making the right ones at the right times, and I feel the right one was made.
That was the case with Ashmore playing into Aaron Henry, but then it gets turned over too easily. Obviously, Antonio goes and gets the second. I can’t say to O’Connell that he won’t be physical and strong, but It’s more about the initial ball in the box.
We then react quite well. I think our best joy came from playing off Luke Norris and identifying that, he got personnel into the game being Rush and Sousa. We then had a spell, just after their second, where we were dominant in terms of keeping the ball in their half.
We get the goal and then, unfortunately for us, we didn’t go and kick on from there. There’s huge frustration because we are shipping goals, and it’s not like a team’s opening us up. West Ham were very proactive in their play today, good with their runs and their movement, but it’s down to us really. It’s down to us taking responsibility.
Set pieces need to improve, especially when defending ones. I felt the delivery from Whelan in the dying seconds was excellent, but we don’t then put West Ham to the sword with Reynolds hitting in the bar from three, four yards out.
Tonight, there were more minutes for certain personnel, a change of shape, and a look at a different system where I felt Luke Norris had an impact in that front line. He’s a different profile to what we have, and you can see there’s a trust in terms of the balls going back to front.
He occupies, which I feel is important because, even when he isn’t winning it, he’s bumping people and letting the ball run through, whether that’s to Sousa or Rush. It’s a secondary threat, the number of balls we’re putting in the box were paramount.
We keep telling the group to get in between the sticks, to get the bodies in there, and that has to be non-negotiable. We’ve got personnel in Newton, Ilesanmi, Coxe and King along with Henry and Wheelan on that midfield line that have good delivery.
If they’re not hitting anyone inside that box, there’s a problem for us. There’s a lot of work to be done, a lot of work away from that group in terms of our recruitment and we know what we need to in the building.
I said it in my pre-match interview and in my programme notes that we are working tirelessly to bring personnel in. We’re adapting and acknowledging what needs to change. We need to try and get some personnel in.\
Hopefully, that’s in the coming week, just so it gives us seven to ten days with them in the building, enabling us to can work on certain things with different personnel leading up to Rochdale.
We’ll address certain aspects of the game tonight that we felt weren’t acceptable and parts that brought joy. We turned the ball over in the middle third, and we seem happy to just play sidewards or backwards. We have to go and attack teams with more impetus to our play.
There’s a reluctance to run off the ball and that’s something we’re working to address. We also need to make sure we’re affecting opposition more, having people face their own goal.
After we’ve reflected on Monday, we then go to Wingate & Finchley, which will be a great test for us. We need to ensure that we start to see clean sheets and that we start to see attitude towards defending our box and being more clinical in the opposition’s.
