Allinson: ‘We rode our luck at times’

Ian Allinson admitted that St Albans City rode their luck at times but was delighted with a 1-0 win at Maidenhead that gives them every chance of staying up.

Michael Thalassitis’ goal six minutes from time came as their play-off chasing hosts looked for a winner of their own.

The win puts City just one point from safety with just four games to go.

And it wasn’t pretty at times but the Saints manager was delighted with the three points.

He said: “It was never going to be easy coming here. They’ve been in very good form and their home record is the best in the league.

“So it was going to be tough and we rode our luck at times in the second half, for 10 minutes I thought we gave the ball away cheaply. They had a couple of half-chances and Joe [Welch] has kept us in it with two good saves.

“But in the end we kept plugging away and when I first came I said we were going to win ugly and that’s why we’ve been attack, attack, attack.

“But today we’ve won ugly and we’ll take the three points.”

They had to survive an onslaught late on in the second-half, and United even had a goal chalked off for offside.

But Allinson thinks that bit of luck was overdue.

“We have to take the rough with the smooth, the good with the bad and we had a little bit of luck today,” he said.

“But that might be the luck we haven’t had for most parts this season.”

And while the remaining four games will be just as tough, he feels Saints are in a good position going down the final stretch.

He said: “It’s really tight. The one thing we had to do was drag every other club into [the relegation scrap] which is what we are doing at the moment.

“We know we’ve probably got to go and win two or three of our last four.

“But we’re going approach each game exactly the same. We’re going to set-up to get three points which is what we did today.

“Gladly and fortunately we did that in the last few minutes.”