Victory for Welling United at home to Whitehawk moved them up to twentieth in the Isthmian League Premier Division, just one point short of safety. After the match, Ryan Maxwell gave his thoughts.

“We were good in the first half. “he said. “We were playing with freedom in the first half, which was great to see. A lot of teams choke in this kind of scenario but I told them don’t worry about that, let me deal with the pressure, just go and play the game. Don’t play the scenario, play the opposition and play your game.”

On the tactical side Maxwell said: “We managed to attack their full backs, one got sent off, two yellows, and that was down to John’s direct dynamic style, brilliant from John, and then we scored from the free kick, unbelievable header from Lekan (Majoyegbe). He’s got two in two and it’s great to see. I demanded some goals from him and he’s taken that demand literally, so well done him.”

However, the second period didn’t start well for the Wings after Whitehawk regrouped at half time. “We’ve got the extra man, mentality’s important there.” said Maxwell.

“They are awkward because they can score from a set-piece, and they did five minutes after half time. It’s a key time. We reacted okay, not great, but we slowly turned the screw. We made a couple of subs and the subs did really well. Noah (Stewart) was a sub and he scored the winner, and we missed a one v one and could have put the game to bed.”

Continuing about how his team played against a team with ten men, Maxwell admitted: “At the top level, teams do change what they’re doing against ten men. You’ve got to work harder. I was trying to enforce that. You’ve got to work even harder because they’ve got to match your work rate. An extra man, you should come out on top.”

“You should pick the ball up and make extra runs but you do play the scenario at times. It’s natural. We’re all human beings. I expect us to play a bit of that but I’d love us to play with more freedom in a scenario like that, with an extra man, at home but I’m going to praise my players again. I have nothing but praise for them. They’re a fantastic bunch of lads and they deserve all the praise today.”

At this time of the season, a lot of teams with grass pitches have surfaces that are difficult to play on. Maxwell is philosophical about how to perform on such surfaces and made no apology for the style that he has adopted.

“What do we want?” he asked. “Do we want to play well, pass the ball lots and lose? I don’t want that. I’ve never wanted that. I’ve managed four teams and at three of them the pitch was horrendous. I’m used to it. I understand the tactics that you can adopt to play with what you’ve got and the players need to accept it.”

“We have got some talented players.” he continued. “Gardy (Lewis Gard) is a fantastic footballer. There’s others who are good ball manipulators in there but it doesn’t suit to take too many touches or too many passes.”

“It’s got to be more economical, and a bit more direct. Ultimately, we got a goal from a set piece and one from a ball diagonally into the box, second phase and it’s far post. The ball hardly touched the floor. You have to accept it. We do accept it. It’s all about winning it’s not about being pretty.”

“It was a pretty team before I got here, apparently and it was really struggling. It is what it is. Make no excuses and get on with it. My priority is just to win. I’ve got a task in front of me. I wasn’t told to play pretty football, I was told to get us out of this and that’s what I’m sticking to.” 

Taking about the two goals that Welling scored, Maxwell said: “Great delivery from Lew (Gard). Funnily enough, he was going to curl it in and I said ‘No. Drive it in, drive it in’ because that way Lekan’s got less to do. He just focuses on the direction rather than the power. I think he listened but he also executed it superbly well.”

“The second one, Troy’s just shown tremendous athleticism for an overhead kick to the far post. That’s a brilliant piece of skill by Troy. He knows what he’s doing there but Noah’s in the right place at the right time. That’s not a fluke. Noah does do that in training.”

“He knows where the ball’s going to land and we’re delighted he’s off the mark. Well done to him. He didn’t get on last week. We brought him in on loan and he thought he was going to get minutes etcetera but it wasn’t right to bring him on last week. It was today.”

However, he was less pleased with the goal conceded. “It was a bit pedestrian.” Maxwell accepted.

“We know what’s coming. We’ve had a few to deal with. We worked on it on Tuesday night, we warned them again this morning and they’ve managed to score but that’s why they’re a difficult team to play against. They know that’s one of their routes to goal.”

“I watched them recently. They scored at least one, maybe two, versus Dulwich doing the same thing and they’re good at it but you’ve got to match it and if we’re going to be ruthless and try and improve, we have to try and improve on that.”

That did not detract from Maxwell’s happiness. He said: “I was absolutely delighted with the three points. It was all about the three points today.”

Pictures supplied by Chris Zimmerman.