There’s a return to Park View Road for Welling United when they host Carshalton Athletic in an Isthmian League Premier Division encounter this weekend.
After three defeats on the spin, Welling manager Ryan Maxwell will be working hard to get his team back on track. They were flat in their home loss against Hashtag United, but they made runaway league leaders Folkestone Invicta work hard to beat them on the South Coast last Saturday.
In that match, there was little between the two teams for the initial half an hour but then, with ten first half minutes remaining, Folkestone converted from their first real chance. Donell Thomas arrived late and scored a trademark goal with a strike that gave Mackenzie Foley no chance. Then in the second half, just as the Wings were starting to look like they could get back into the game, Liam Smith scored the goal that snuffed out their challenge.
Peter Adeniyi’s Carshalton team are in sixteenth place, eight points ahead of the Wings having played two games more. They have gone twelve games without a win but have drawn six of them including a two-two at home to Whitehawk last Saturday. Eddie Oppong gave them a third minute lead but they were behind by half time due to two goals by Harry Lodovica in four minutes. The Robins plugged away in the second period and levelled late in the day through Fikayo Atewolugun.
When the two teams met at the War Memorial Sports Ground at the end of September, Welling fell to defeat. Former Wing Mason Saunders-Henry put the hosts ahead just before half time but Logan Dobbs levelled on the hour mark. Tommy Bradford converted from the spot to win it for Carshalton with fifteen minutes remaining.
Little can be taken from that match as far as a form guide is concerned as Lekan Majoyegbe is the only Welling starter from that day who remains at the club. Maxwell will be expecting a similar commitment and work-rate to that demonstrated at Folkestone last time out plus the creativity required to break down their visitors’ defence.
Picture supplied by Peter Jozwiak.