Enfield Town 1 Maidstone United 4
Report by andrew warshaw
Keep the faith. That’s the key message despite another chastening afternoon which has left us one place off the bottom of the table.
It takes time, especially after getting promoted, for a new-look squad to gel. Plus the fact that having perhaps over-achieved last season, the challenge of Step 2 is even greater than most of us might have anticipated.
That’s not to underplay the disappointment of coming up short for the seventh time in eight outings, again largely due to defensive frailty.
But there were encouraging signs. At one point we were very much in the game and our three new signings gave glimpses of how they might improve us, Harry Ottaway’s heading ability and hold-up play particularly eye-catching when he came on.
Whilst Maidstone hadn’t exactly started the season with a flourish, it’s easy to lose sight of their pedigree and size as a football club.
It certainly wasn’t a 4-1 scoreline in terms of overall play but the main issue is that the opposition at this level is not giving us many openings to exploit, unlike vice versa.
So it was after 20 minutes when the Stones opened the score. Having already fired narrowly wide and forced Rhys Forster into an excellent stop, it was third time lucky for Matt Bentley, flicking home a cross from the left in Stones’ first real spell of pressure.
Until then we hadn’t been overly troubled apart from an early goalmouth scramble while at the other end, Lennon Peake forced Alexis Andre Jn into a low stop as he raced on to Carl Mensah’s header out of defence.
While no-one would dispute that Carl was liable for one if not two of Maidstone’s goals, it’s harsh to judge him on one display and for the most part, he did the very job he was signed for – using his height to head balls away from goal.
Harley Mills, meanwhile, looked extremely promising until a needless late challenge which earned him a 90th minute second yellow that will keep him out of our cup tie next Saturday. It’s a sad irony that he was given permission to play in the cup by Peterborough United, only to be ruled out against Peterborough Sports.
Just before halftime, Billy Leonard’s well-drilled shot was bang on target until being intercepted by George Fowler and Town needed more of the same after the break.
H-T 0-1
Instead, six minutes after halftime, Mensah misjudged a spinning ball and Aaron Blair was through on goal.
Town needed a quick response and we were back in the game through Peake’s quick thinking as he darted into the box and smacked the ball home (pictured) after great work by Hisham Kasimu.
But just as we looked to move into the ascendancy, we were undone through two more Blair goals, the first finishing off some clever link-up play, the other capitalising on more defensive culpability as Mensah’s attempted back header sold Forster well short.
Little goes for you when you are near the bottom and earlier in the half Gavin Macpherson was booked after the referee ignored a clear shirt pull on Ottaway that could have earned us a spotkick.
And as the game moved into stoppage time our misery was complete as we were reduced to 10 men after Mills was dismissed for a late challenge on Bivesh Gurung.
Gavin, unusually, had some choice words about the referee but admitted it was not why we lost the game.
“I could regurgitate countless interviews but errors keep costing us,” he said. “Having said that, we were up against another full-time team while we were unable to train fully on Thursday to try and work on things.”
“With regards to Carl, for the most part he did exactly why we brought him in. Obviously he made a mistake but the other goal people might be referring to was a shanked clearance that spun up in their air and he couldn’t re-adjust.”
“Once again, there was hardly anything in the game but the result was the same. How do we address it? I have to go away and analyse things. Every one of us is accountable though I’m the one at the top of the tree. I’ve never shied away from anything in football and I’m not prepared to start now.”
Enfield 4-1-4-1
Forster; Parcell, Nembhard, Mensah, Mills; Thomas (Ottaway 55); Knight (Payne 67), Leshebela, Leonard, Peake; Kasimu