Harrogate Town Boss Reflective – “We Have Parted Like The Red Sea For The Winning Goal”

Following the 2-1 defeat to Crewe Alexandra on Monday evening, Simon Weaver gave his thoughts.

Harrogate Town boss Simon Weaver was not happy with his side’s 2-1 defeat to Crewe Alexandra on Monday night in front of the tv cameras, as his team conceded a lead.

Speaking to The Harrogate Advertiser, Weaver said:

“Unfortunately, we have parted like the Red Sea for the winning goal,”

“We’ve not had the required intensity for one minute and that is what has cost us.

“It’s one blip, where we have just not come out and closed the ball down quickly enough. It has cost us on the night, and that’s the level we are playing at now, so we have to learn from that.

“We had a little spell in the second half, but you don’t deserve to win the game when you concede that really poor second goal.

“And it’s disappointing because it would have been a decent point against a good Crewe side.”

Weaver continued: “It was a tight game.

“Having gone one up after scoring a great goal, we were in a good position. We were quite happy to stay solid and try to catch Crewe on the counter-attack, because we have lots of pace, but we lost a little bit of control.

“The game, from our perspective, became a little bit fractious and we dropped a bit deep. They weren’t causing us real problems, but we didn’t add to the score-line and conceded from a well-executed corner from them.”Second half, they started off on the front foot. It swung in their favour, and then our favour, but they changed their shape to counteract what we were doing and credit to them. But, it’s a really poor goal to concede.”

Understandably, Crewe Alexandra midfielder Max Sanders was much happier:

“Absolutely buzzing to come here and win, especially after being 1-0 down so early,” Sanders told BBC Radio Stoke.

“I was saying to the lads, the first goal was going to be a good one,” Sanders said.

“But I’m just happy to help the team to get three points and back up the win against Notts County.

“I feel the best I’ve felt for long time due to playing 11 games on the trot. I know I need to add goals and assists and, luckily, in the last two games I’ve got that – hopefully I can build on that.”

“That’s given us even more confidence because we haven’t been great when we’ve gone a goal down – we’ve struggled to settle down,” he said.

“But we kept on playing and it was great to come from behind. It’s so hard to win when you go a goal down down especially in this league.”

“We started so well but we went though a bit of a a spell when we weren’t playing great,” he said.

“But it just shows the character we’ve got to put two wins together when we’re under pressure to get a result.

“It shows we can come back from a bad spell of form.”

The Match

Harrogate Town started brightly with a Jack Muldoon header opening the scoring from a fast break, Reece Smith providing the cross for the former Lincoln City man to finish. The game was levelled around the half hour mark when Tommi O’Reilly took a corner which was finished by Reece Hutchinson. The visitors then lost Jack Lankester to injury just 5 minutes before the half-time break. The second half was much tighter with the only goal coming from Max Sanders who ran unopposed through pretty much the entire Harrogate team.

The Form Of Both Sides

Harrogate Town

4 wins from 5 games had helped Harrogate Town rise to 16th before Monday’s ‘blip’. This including two wins in the EFL Trophy, both 1-0 over Huddersfield Town and Mansfield Town respectively. The wins in League Two came with a 2-0 victory over Shrewsbury Town and a 1-0 triumph over high-flying Gillingham.

Town will be hoping to return to winning ways as they finish October with trips to Fleetwood Town and Colchester United before hosting struggling Newport County.

Crewe Alexandra

Crewe Alexandra now sit in 5th just 6 points off the top of League Two following consecutive 2-1 defeats, both last night and last time out against Notts County. Their ‘blip’ came in August and September with 4 defeats in 5 against Gillingham, Swindon Town, Barrow and Barnet.

Crewe will be hoping to continue their momentum as they host Bromley and Grimsby Town with a trip to Milton Keynes Dons sandwiched in the middle. They also face Liverpool U21’s in the EFL Trophy.

Rob Beezley
Rob Beezley

Writer and Editor At The Lower Tiers | Lincoln City Fan | Previously Appeared On The Real EFL

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