Steve Castle Reflects

An honest appraisal

In fairness to Banbury, they tried to play out from the back and for a while, we couldn’t get used to it. It wasn’t the fact they played through us but the fact that when we got the ball back, we gave it away far too quickly. This enabled Banbury to get their confidence up and they played through us far too easy. They soon took the lead, apparently, their man that scored was offside, and for the first time this season we had conceded and were behind.

We rejigged a bit and got an extra man in midfield but, honestly, we weren’t playing well but we're just ‘hanging in there’. We adjusted and although certainly not as fluent as in previous matches we were slowly putting our mark on the game. However, I did feel that as a team we could have worked harder off the ball for one another.

The boys had given everything, they had been moved into several different positions but kept going and fair play to them for that. Both Chris and are always reluctant to change systems but when you’re reduced to 10 players and then 9 then it’s desperate stakes at times!

The ‘problem’ we currently have is a severe lack of central midfielders. With all due respect to Ed, Gus and Harold, all of them natural defenders, but they’ve all had to do a shift alongside our only recognised central-midfielder in Scott Bridges. I’m certainly not knocking the young lads in Isa and Sam Nolan who are learning their trade.

Now we have a week to lick our wounds and get ourselves back fitness-wise.

Steve Castle
Royston Town FC