Wingate and Finchley 0 Enfield Town 1

Report by Andrew Warshaw

Forget the scoreline. Gavin Macpherson was more than a touch peeved after what he described as our worst pre-season outing so far, calling into question the attitude of the players.

On an excellent playing surface and against Step 3 opposition, Town were second best for large parts of the game and might easily have lost – only to snatch victory four minutes from time through an Avan Jones header.

A performance lacking in cohesion and ideas was somewhat of a surprise given we lined up with a strong side. Harry Lodovica made his debut up front with another new recruit Hayden Bullas, on loan from Orient, in midfield.

Yet Wingate looked the sharper, more energetic side against a strangely lacklustre Town who didn’t seem to come to grips with the 3-5-2 formation.

Having said that, we got off to a decent start when Wingate keeper Charlie Granger clawed a Sam Youngs header on to the bar. Sam hit the woodwork again with a close-range header from a corner but either side of those efforts, it was  the hosts who posed the greater threat.

The second half saw the management team ring the changes as per, only for Wingate to create the majority of the chances from open play

The fact that none of them found the back of Enfield’s net was down to a mixture of finishing being narrowly off target, our own woodwork hit twice, sharp stops from Adi Connolly and a healthy dose of good fortune.  On one almost comical occasion, a hospital backpass from the normally reliable Adam Thompson saw the ball bounce over Adi’s head and roll inches wide of an unguarded net.

On 86 minutes, however, Town got over the line when a freekick from a triallist saw Jones steal a yard on his marker and power home a header. Another set-piece goal, another clean sheet but Gavin was not a happy bunny.

“It’s by far the worst we’ve played in pre-season,” he bemoaned. “I felt we were lacking commitment. They ran harder than us and outworked us. It was really poor and something we’ll need to have a look at. Yes another clean sheet and set-piece but I’m not going to dress it up into something it’s not. We could easily have conceded today.”

“Too many of the players are still not up to speed. Too many have missed chunks of pre-season. I can’t accept performances like that whether it’s the league or pre-season.”

Better to have such a below-par performance now, perhaps, rather than when the season starts and we have two more friendlies, against the Arsenal and Spurs under-21 sides, to put things right.

“That’s true but I expect standards to be as high as they can but there was an attitude problem and that’s something we simply cannot guilty of because we are in a league where we are a small minnow,” said Gavin.

“The one thing we have to have on our side – and did have for large chunks of last season – is the fact that we battle and work hard. If those two things are not there as a fundamental, we’re going to have a very difficult season because, without any disrepect to Wingate, we’re going to face a whole lot better than the team we faced today.”

First half team:

Forster; Benjamin, Thompson, Donaldson; Payne, Parcell, Bullas, Youngs, Leonard; Lodovica, Reynolds

Second half subs:

Jones, Hawkins, Knight, Wood, Brown, Connolly, two triallist