While Andy Gowens was frustrated to see his side concede a stoppage time equaliser, he was quick to acknowledge that Guisborough deserved a share of the points. “I think overall a draw was a fair result on the balance of play. They were the better side first half then we came on more in the second half and when we scored we were a different team. It seemed to give us a massive lift. I don’t know whether it’s a confidence thing or not. Then Andrei had a great chance and really should have finished it off at 2-0 and they’d have been dead and buried. But then we shot ourselves in the foot, we couldn’t defend it at the back, allowed the cross in and a free header at the back for their goal – disappointing! We’ve been like that for a few weeks, not passing it well, not retaining the ball, just giving it away. At the end of the first half me and Mick were writing down how many unforced errors there were, and there were too many, far too many. We can’t keep the ball and get it out and play free flowing football that we like. It’s getting bitty and we’re having to battle and we’re not winning the battles. We’re not finishing goals off, you know if it’s 2-0 at that stage, you’re home and you’ve won… but they’ll be thinking our goal was against the run of play.
“They’re a decent side, we knew that before we came; they gave Consett a really good game last week, just 2-1 Consett won, but they scored two goals at the end and that’s the difference. You’ve got to take your chances away from home and we didn’t do that. We had a couple of half chances before that and they had some as well; Tom’s pulled off a couple of good saves.
“But it’s very frustrating really. The issue at the minute is we’re not retaining the ball as a team, not just midfield but anywhere, we’re putting it out of play or giving it to them which is putting us on the back foot. Then what happens is we get deeper and deeper because we’re not getting hold of the ball and so we’re not going forward. Once we scored today we started going forward and we had a couple of half chances. When Kieran came on, he’s done really well again, but over all there’s still a lot of work to be done.
“It’s still early days when you look at the side we’ve put together in the summer. It’s disappointing not to win because we should be winning games when we’re just drawing and probably should be drawing games when we’re getting beaten. The thing is there are fine margins in football, sometimes it goes for you and sometimes it doesn’t. Over a season every team has times like that and you’ve got to see it out and maybe play it a bit ugly away from home, win it 1-0 or maybe 2-0 like it should have been today, even if you’re not playing really well. That’s what Consett are doing, not playing well every week but they’re winning games, getting the consistency of winning.
“It’s no good feeling sorry for ourselves; the players know what they’re doing wrong. We’ve got to keep going and put it right.”
