Leamington boss Easterlow – we must tighten up at the back
Leamington manager Scott Easterlow is calling on his side to tighten up at the back after they led 2-0 at Halesowen Town on Tuesday night only to lose 3-2 to a stoppage time winner.
It was a third defeat in a row and left the Brakes in the Southern Premier Central drop zone ahead of Saturday's home clash with eighth-placed Peterborough Sports.
“We look like we can score plenty of goals going forward, but we have to tighten up defensively and find that winning formula at the back,” he said.
“We also need to cut out individual errors which seem to be the cause of about 60 per cent of the goals we've conceded so far.
“I have mixed emotions really. I'm really proud of the lads and I thought we played really well for the first 45 minutes and took a deserved 2-0 lead.
“With better finishing we could probably have had a couple more, or at least one more.
“Heading for half-time we thought if we could just go in with a two-goal lead it would be a healthy lead.
“But we couldn't hold out and they scored a minute before the break.
“That was unfortunate as one of our lads was about to clear the ball and he slipped and it fell to their lad in the box.
“That gave them a bit of an uplift just before half-time.”
He continued: “We knew Halesowen would come out and have a go at us after the break, and they did for the opening 15-20 minutes, though didn't really cause us any issues, shooting from afar and Brian (Okonkwo) didn't have a save to make.
“Then we made a mistake for their equalising goal.
“Last 20 minutes it was all us really and we missed a couple of good chances to kill the game off.
“If we'd taken even one of them it would have been a different result.
“But we didn't and then we were sucker punched at the end.
“I was proud of the performance but another result goes away from us as we didn't take our chances when we had them and let three goals in away from home.
“At the moment we just can't seem to keep it nice and tight at the back for whatever reason and, when you can't do that, you will struggle to pick up points, especially away from home.”
Tuesday’s game was quite a reunion night with former Brakes boss Paul Holleran in charge of the Yeltz.
Also in the Halesowen ranks were a quartet of players with 373 appearances for Leamington between them.
Dan Meredith, Rob Evans, Tyrone Barnett and Milan Butterfield have all turned out in Gold and Black over the last nine years while former Halesowen men Kyle Finn and Nat Kelly lined up for Leamington.