Altrincham FC manager Lee Sinnott will be giving us the inside track on the Robins’ return to the Conference. Here’s his latest column for Altrincham Today.
It’s certainly been a very difficult week for everyone at Altrincham Football Club.
We knew that we were going to be in for a difficult time at Blyth on Sunday in the FA Cup first round, but there was no excuse for the way that we started the game or the quality of our defending, which was poor, and we could have no complaints with the 4-1 scoreline.
I feel so disappointed and sorry for everyone connected with the club, particularly all those who made the long journey in the hope of cheering us into the next round.
It’s another point I keep making to the players, that we’ve got supporters who go to incredible lengths, and expense, to make sure we’ve got vocal backing wherever we play and that we really should be doing our utmost to make it worth their while. They deserved better than they got on Sunday, and I am truly sorry for that.
We changed things around at Telford on Wednesday night, playing a 4-3-2-1 Christmas Tree formation and I thought that the players adapted very well to this and played some really nice football using a team shape that I have been thinking of trying for a few weeks now.
If we continue to play the quality of football that we achieved at the Bucks Head on Wednesday, I am confident that we will see greater returns as the season progresses
We created some decent opportunities throughout the game but you have to put the ball in the back of the net and we didn’t manage that until the second half was deep into added time and by then we were two goals down.
Defensively, we were generally very good, particularly Luca Havern, but we conceded a goal midway through the first half just as we were getting on top.
Then the second goal came late on, very much against the run of play, after we had dominated the second half. To sum it up, we fell a bit short in both boxes.
Like in my first season as manager, we are in a new league and still adapting to that, but if we continue to play the quality of football that we achieved at the Bucks Head on Wednesday and create a good number of decent opportunities, then I am confident that we will see greater returns as the season progresses.
On Saturday we play second-placed Grimsby and perhaps we owe our supporters a really good performance at The J Davidson Stadium.
Despite the two defeats on our travels this week, we have been generally improving away from home as the season has progressed, but we have lacked consistency at home in recent games and it’s important that we address that and give the fans the performance and result that we all want.
