We’ve come a long way already – the pre-season work is paying off
The boys have been buzzing again this week after another great win away from home, this time 1-0 at Basingstoke.
That’s four away wins already this season and shows, in my view, that the club is heading in the right direction.
It’s particularly pleasing that we can go away and be that resolute enough not to concede and come away with the three points.
I decided to play with three at the back at the Camrose, largely to counteract Basingstoke’s formation, and our gameplan paid off.
Although I sprang it on them on the morning of the game, we had worked on it in pre-season.
When we were recruiting these boys, we knew they were players who could adapt to different positions.
Tom Bird, for example, is a left-back who is now playing as a left midfielder, and Louie Soares, who played at wing-back against Basingstoke, is a winger.
We’re away again on Saturday, this time at Farnborough. I didn’t take training on Tuesday – instead I went on a scouting mission to watch Farnborough’s 5-2 defeat at Eastbourne Borough.
They conceded really early on and while Farnborough tried to play, Eastbourne wouldn’t let them and were very aggressive with their closing down. Farnborough then went on to concede just before half-time and then 65 seconds into the second half.
When you go 3-0 down like that, with goals at crucial times, it’s very difficult to come back from.
In watching future opponents, I normally take a 70-30 approach – mostly watching their attack and what they do, and partly watching who they’re playing against and how that side tries to exploit any weaknesses.
Farnborough have put their well-publicised troubles behind them now, and it will be a tough game because they’re a wounded animal after Tuesday.
But we’re showing the sort of steel that perhaps we didn’t have in the first few games of the season.
For example, against Maidenhead in our first away match, we led 1-0 with 25 minutes to go but lost 2-1. If we played them now it would be a different story, I’m sure, now we know what to do to close a game out.
It’s great to see how far the players have come – they’ve beaten a lot of the big-spending teams and it’ll be fascinating to see how far they want to push themselves this year.
We’ve still got a small squad – on Thursday night we only had 14 senior players at training – and when the pitches are heavier and we get injuries that will test them.
We’re far from a well-oiled machine but the signs of development are there week to week.
Follow West London Sport on Twitter
Find us on Facebook
