AFC Telford United boss Paul Carden urges players to keep focus after Spennymoor win
Bucks boss Paul Carden praised his side following their 2-0 home victory over Spennymoor Town, but urged them to keep their focus, saying: “We have got to make sure we keep going.”
Two goals from the unlikely source of defensive midfielder Liam Nolan, on loan from AFC Fylde, brought the Bucks a richly deserved victory, and Carden, although retaining his focus on the games ahead, was clearly satisfied with what he saw: I’ve felt that in recent weeks, the scoreline hasn’t reflected the performance, and we got the result that matched the performance,” added Carden.
“From the first minute we set about them, and could have been two or three goals up inside 10-15 minutes, and more than that within half an hour. It looked like we may have wasted our chances, but we didn’t.
“We played with an intelligence today that at times we’ve lacked, and which has cost us, but I thought to a man today, the young lads who were in the team, both James (Melhado) and Burkey (Ryan Burke) in the full-back positions, Reiss McNally – people think he’s an experienced player but he’s only young as well.
“I felt we were assured all over the pitch and that we thoroughly deserved the win.”
The Bucks remain 20th in the Vanarama National League North, three points ahead of bottom club Farsley Celtic, and two points ahead of Guiseley in 21st. Both have games in hand on the Bucks, and the fixture computer sends Carden’s men to face Guiseley on Tuesday, then to Farsley next Saturday.
Their next two fixtures, at home to Blyth Spartans and Gloucester City, mean the Bucks play the other four teams alongside them in the bottom five over the next three weeks. Given the potential significance of that quartet of matches, Carden felt his team had given themselves the perfect launchpad with Saturday’s victory:
“The run of games we’ve got coming up is going to be huge. We approach it in the same way we did today, and in previous weeks, and I’m confident. When we played Guiseley here a few months ago, I felt they were strong, and that their league position wasn’t true. I know what they’ve got, and they’ve lost today, so they’ll be hurting, wanting to show a reaction.”
One concern for Carden is managing his resources. A hamstring niggle relegated Byron Moore to the substitutes bench and he broke down in the warm-ups, making him a doubt for Tuesday. Other ‘wear and tear’ injuries meant Carden had to play an entire back four of loan players, plus Nolan, and with six loan players on the books currently and league rules only permitting five in the matchday squad, midfielder Keaton Ward was the unlucky man to miss out.
Carden had only words of praise for how the 21 years old Mansfield Town player responded to being left out:
“The loan situation isn’t ideal. We’ve got six loans, which we’ve had to do, but Keats missed out and was gutted. I phoned him to explain why, and my reasons, and what a diamond of a lad he is. He performed unbelievably on Tuesday night (at Fylde), but he was out there today with the lads, encouraging them, and he’s on loan, but he’s bought into what we need to be, which is together as a team and pulling each other through it.”
