Cray Wanderers vs Hornchurch – Sunday 10th April – The pre-match thoughts/programme notes of Neil Smith

Cray Wanderers vs. Hornchurch – The pre-game thoughts of Neil Smith

 Cray Wanderers go into the final four games of the season with still plenty to do to preserve their Isthmian League Premier status for next season. Please see here the thoughts of Cray Wanderers manager Neil Smith in his first programme notes ahead of this afternoon’s huge game vs promotion chasing Hornchurch.

Welcome to Cray Wanderers Neil! I think it is fair to say that it has been a bit of a whirlwind for you since your appointment on 22nd March. From all at Cray Wanderers and supporters, we welcome you to our great club. We respect your past achievements and we are looking forward to hopefully some better times ahead.

 Let’s take a look back to last Saturday’s game at Leatherhead. Quite a difficult build up to the game for you as Joe Wright and Freddy Barton were ruled out with injury in the week leading up to the match and Kasim Aidoo was due to start but pulled out before the game so not ideal preparations for such a key game.

 That’s right, it started with Joe who has been brilliant for us since coming here on loan from Millwall.  He got a whack to the face during the Kingstonian game and was going in for treatment at Millwall and I expected would just have a concussion test but I then received a phone call to say he will be out for six weeks due to an injury to his ankle which was something I didn’t envisage. I had brought in Max Huxter as cover at late notice before the transfer deadline and it is just as well we did. Another club had put in a seven day approach for Jacob Munting the week before I arrived at Cray and Nazir Bakrin’s loan spell had ended and returned to Charlton Athletic which was agreed before I joined.

 In regards to the injuries to Freddy and Kasim which were picked up in the Kingstonian game. After training on Thursday it looked like Kasim would be ok but before the Leatherhead match he tweaked it again. Situations like that really take you back and I’ve been there before that when Saturday comes all your best laid plans don’t come off because there were also problems with traffic and delays getting to the ground and also some illness as well. It was one of those games where everything you were looking to put in place by Saturday at 3pm and you had to chop and change the players you’ve been training with the week before.

Looking back, it was a very scrappy affair as you would probably expect but I felt we looked fairly comfortable aside from one close range missed chance early in the second half.

 Leatherhead had one shot in the first half which was touched onto the post but I felt we had enough of the ball in the first half to create a couple of chances ourselves. Anthony Cook has had a shot which flashed just wide which we were right behind and just moved right at the last minute. I thought we looked comfortable and negated their strengths and at half time I felt what we worked on at training on Tuesday and Thursday was working and it would do so again in the second half. We then go ahead from a set play we had been working on giving players little ideas for set plays and then after that we looked a bit shaky and nervous and sometimes that comes when you haven’t been winning many games and you forget how to win matches. They get back into it with a penalty and then Leatherhead grab a winner in the last minute.

 We have lost a lot of points from winning positions this season especially in the last few games and had we won those we would be a lot higher up the table.  The winning goal for Leatherhead in the last minute was a real sickener for us when perhaps a draw was a fair result and you could see they were lifted after that.

 After the last two games it has been very humbling to have the opposition manager come up to you and say they are not sure how they have won the games when we have been the better team. At the same time we have come away with nothing from two games we should have got something out of. This has been happening all season for Cray so obviously there is something there for the remaining games for me to change the mentality that if you do win we can see it out and not put pressure on ourselves.

 You could tell from the reactions of the Leatherhead players and fans at the end how big that win was. They were in danger of getting cut adrift at the bottom a few weeks ago and this goes to show that you can never give up in football and things may eventually go your way.

 They have timed their good run well and have won four out of the last five games. There is no rhyme or reason to some of the results from last week such as East Thurrock beating Potters Bar. There are some very tight games coming up and it will go right to the wire. You just hope that it is down to you what happens rather than having to rely on someone else to get a result for you.

 We certainly couldn’t have asked for a tougher run-in than to have Hornchurch, Enfield Town and Bishop’s Stortford to play with a game at home to East Thurrock United sandwiched in between. Cray won at Hornchurch back in August which seems a very long time ago now but have been near the top since then. What sort of challenge are you expecting from Hornchurch today?

 I know Mark Stimson very well, me and Tim O’Shea were at Tottenham together with Mark. He has been fantastic with every team he has been at whether it was Grays, Gillingham and now Hornchurch. He is a very wily manager at this level and Hornchurch will be strong and think this will be a chance for them of getting three points and staying in the playoff positions. We’ve got to show we are up for the fight, they will be very direct and in our faces and have to make sure we are ready for it.

They are all difficult games we have left as they all have something to play for. If we were playing middle of the road teams who cannot go up or down they maybe could have played players they haven’t had a chance to look at in an aim towards next season. That is not the case for our opponents and for the last four games every team will be putting their best possible teams out against us to get the results they need.  They have playoff positions to cement and look to gain home advantage. Bishop’s Stortford have been Worthing’s main challengers this season so will be tough while East Thurrock too will be looking to get one over us and boost their survival hopes going into the final game.

I knew it was going to be tough going into these six games and the realisation that deadline day was just a couple of days after my appointment and trying to get players to sign within 24 hours was an eye opener and then the injuries since. When you have a small squad any injuries can be a problem but when you have so many after one game it does knock the confidence of the players and the players who do come in give everything they’ve got.