After three consecutive wins, and having already beaten Gloucester City away this season, Welling United were favourites when the two teams met at Park View Road.

However, Gloucester got the better of the Wings, both in terms of the result and the overall performance. Welling manager, Jamie Coyle, felt that he couldn’t be too severe on the players though, although some had put in performances below the club’s expectations.

“You can’t legislate for some of the performances today.” he said. “It’s tough because the players who haven’t been at it today have been great for the last three games but if you are going to push on and get into the play-offs, you need to have players that consistently give you 7 or 8 out of 10 every week.

“As soon as you have two or three that are not doing that when you haven’t got the ball you are going to get caught out, especially against a team that are fighting for their lives at the bottom from relegation.

“You can’t put your finger on it sometimes.” he continued. “I’m looking at certain players and the ability that they have got that if they put a consistent run of performances together, they wouldn’t be with us. You can’t carry players at any level and there were three or four who were nowhere near the standards they have been at recently.

“They’ve been phenomenal recently and we’ve been on a great run but three or four had an off day today and our quality all over the pitch was poor.”

Although Welling were not at their best, Coyle felt it was only right to praise Gloucester City. “I’ve got to give them credit. They came here and played five at the back, defended really well and the three boys that were in our final third worked their absolute backsides off and caused us loads of problems.

“They came here and did a job on us, defended everything we threw at them. We didn’t really test their goalkeeper. We’ve watched their videos and prepared for the game. We looked at their game against Poole and they’ve played exactly the same as they did then,

“We knew that they were going to compact the midfield. We knew that they were very narrow. Their wing backs don’t get on. They literally stay as a back five, but what they do do, their front three, they cause problems because they chase lost causes and they did that today. They fed off scraps and turned the scraps into more quality than we did.”

Bailey Vose came in for his debut in goal on loan from Brighton and Hove Albion but Coyle had hoped to name an unchanged outfield ten. He said “The boys have been playing really well recently. We changed Nana (Christian Nanetti) because he’d had a slight knock. We haven’t had the opportunity once this year to keep the same eleven which is frustrating.

“I thought our best player by a mile today was Connor Dymond.” he continued. “I thought that was his best performance for weeks. He was winning most of the second balls in his area and he can’t do three or four players jobs. I thought that he did really well but when you’re playing against a narrow midfield, you need your wingers to tuck in and help out.”

Getting into the first half even was the aim as the first half wore on. Coyle explained “We always tend to play better when we go down the slope here. If we get in at nil nil we have a go in the second half and change things around but it wasn’t to be and we got the sucker punch at the end.”

There had been a squad change during the week and Coyle explained “Harley (Willard) contacted me out of the blue and said his agent’s been touting him around and he’s got an opportunity to go to Sweden and trial at a pro club. At this stage of the season we need players who are committed to the cause and try and get us to where we deserve to be, in the play-offs at the end of the season.

“I can’t have players going on trials here, there and everywhere when they’re going to miss a game. I wish him well and I hope that he does get a deal in Sweden, but the priority is Welling United Football Club.”

Willard’s departure left a vacancy in the squad and Coyle filled it by brining in Ryan Hall. Coyle was happy with his debut saying “I thought he worked really hard, especially in the first half, He has been playing in the ten (role) at Merstham and that’s where I’ve seen him in the majority of times but I know that he has quality on the ball.

“He showed that in the first half when he played a great diag (diagonal pass) in to Bradley Goldberg when he put him through and he worked hard. It may take him a little bit of time to adjust from a ten to come out as an eleven, but I thought he did well for a debut. It’s difficult but he will build with confidence into this position.”

Christie Pattison has moved from Phoenix Sports to Carshalton Athletic but retains his relationship with Welling United. Coyle said that he was pleased that he had joined a team in the promotion shake up in the Bostik League South “He is still dual registered. We will keep tabs on him and see how he progresses.”

Welling play at Bognor Regis Town on Tuesday evening and will be looking to get back to winning ways.

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.