Victory over AFC Whyteleafe moved Welling United to the summit of the Isthmian League Premier Division. After the match, Wings manager Ryan Maxwell offered his thoughts to Mark Doig.
“I think it should have been four, certainly three, by half time.” he said.
“Their keeper’s definitely their man of the match today, some brilliant saves. You could say we weren’t clinical enough but sometimes you have to give the keeper credit too. I don’t think our keeper’s made an actual save, maybe one down to his right but it wasn’t travelling with any force.
“My only negative would be that we didn’t come in comfortably winning at half time. We started the game really well and played some great football in the first half, some really good stuff. We knew that they would stay in it because they had a game on Wednesday when they did stay in it until the last minute so we expected them to stay in it but I think that on another day we could have won this comfortably if it wasn’t for the keeper.”
Being top of the league pleased Maxwell. He said “It’s very early but because I know that my team is getting stronger, it’s significant that we are there at the moment but, never too high, never too low. It’s a work in progress. We’ll never stop working and I won’t stop demanding. It looks okay at the minute, but there’s a long way to go.”
There was an attendance just short of a thousand, and that’s no more than Maxwell expects. “It’s what this club should have.” he said. “There’s no doubt about it. The atmosphere was brilliant today. Rome wasn’t built in a day but we’re certainly building it now. It was a great crowd, some great causes today, and I think that everyone here today enjoyed the game so I’m really hoping that everyone wants to come back.
“We’re sitting top of the league, get behind your club and we’ve said that if you come back we’ll show you that it’s worth it. We’re literally showing you that it’s worth it. We’ve got a team that will fight for every inch, for everything here, for the fans so if you support them they’ll give you all they’ve got. I really hope that they come back in their droves because it was a brilliant atmosphere today, brilliant.”
Back to the game, Maxwell said “I felt that the first goal was going to be crucial today. I did say to the boys that you’ll have to be patient as they sit very deep. We worked on that on Thursday. We had an idea on what we’d see so we trained in preparation for that. It’s a team that we had to break down at times, a team we had to be patient against, but overall I think that we handled them well. They’ve got some excellent players. Very, very good footballers with experience as well so it’s not an easy game. It wasn’t an easy game.”
Six league home wins out of six, with just one goal yielded also delighted him. He beamed “Another clean sheet, we must have the most clean sheets in the league comfortably now, at home, so I’m delighted with our home form. It’s fantastic. We’ve conceded one goal here so this is a fortress. I set out to build a fortress, we’re building it, the numbers support it but we’ve got to keep going and protect this place. Bearing in mind what we came into, to have that record is fantastic. I’m so proud of everyone involved and that’s something the fans have to take credit for as well. It’s so important.”
Image courtesy of Keith Gillard