Saturday 26 October 2019

Welling United 0 v St. Albans 1

Pre-match, Tony said he fancied the visitors at 3-1 with the bookie. He went down to Eastleigh in the week and was very disappointed by the performance and the 4-2 defeat which saw the Wings exit the F A Cup, so I took this to be a tad melodramatic and said I was sure the Wings would turn the corner today against the bottom-placed side.

It was a depressing afternoon of grey cloud, intermittent rain and the first signs of the approaching cold. To accompany it we got the worst Welling performance I have seen. On paper the side look strong enough but there was a desperate shortage of energy and St. Albans settled quickly. Bradley Goldberg hobbled off after about twenty minutes and any Welling attacking intent left with him. Adam Coombes is a talented footballer but boy, is he lazy. Tee him up and he will finish but he seems content in between times to watch others running about and fighting for the ball. Anthony Cook moved into a more central role after Goldberg went off but he's not a striker. Cosgrave who came on played on the right but made little impression. 

The way was clear for the visitors to take control of the game and they did that, culminating in taking the lead shortly before half-time having sent a player clear who rode a challenge before running on and driving across Wilks into the far corner. Suddenly Tony's 3-1 odds looked very attractive. Welling continued to look lack-lustre and largely disinterested until the last fifteen minutes when they  realised they were heading for defeat and needed to pull something out of the hat. By then though St. Albans were fighting for a rare away win and they weren't letting go. Welling huffed and puffed but they lacked the finish and events were summed up when Coombes was booked for diving for a penalty. 

After a stuttering start to the season it was difficult to tell whether Welling were not firing properly under Mark Goldberg's management or if they just needed time to settle before they went on a winning run and moved up the table. This evening the Jury are looking accusingly at Mark Goldberg's failure to motivate his players or effect any meaningful tactical changes via substitutions. Hard not to think Steve King would have had this side much further up the table had he still been managing them. Welling have been here once before with Goldberg indulging himself and it didn't end well.

The only good news from the afternoon was hearing that Macauley Bonne had once again netted to haul the Addicks level at The Hawthorns and that Josh Cullen nailed a last-gasp penalty to earn the point against the league leaders. The contrast between Bowyer and Goldberg couldn't be clearer.

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