An incident-packed game at Billericay Town left St Albans City manager Ian Allinson with vastly differing emotions – and plans in place to change their fortunes.
Saints finished the contest in Essex with 10 men, after Harold Joseph was dismissed for two yellow cards, and with a 3-2 loss.
And while he was angry at the manner of the goals conceded, the City boss was also a proud man.
He said: “I’m disappointed that we didn’t get something out of it to be honest as even with the 10 men I thought we were the better side.
“Yes, they had lots of possession but I thought we had three or four really good chances and they never really opened us up.
“All their goals have come from set-pieces.
“I’m standing here very proud of the players and disappointed we haven’t got the three points.
“Again we’ll have to go away and work hard on the manner of the goals conceded but in the end a lack of discipline for five minutes cost us.
“You can’t go down to 10 men and expect to get something out of it but I still think we deserved to.
“The pleasing thing is we are still creating opportunities and the players are still working extremely hard and a defeat is hard to take.”
David Moyo and Ralston Gabriel had fired City ahead only for the Blues to pull one back instantly and in the melee that followed, Joseph and Ben Gerring clash.
Allinson said: “I’ve seen their centre-half’s eye and that looks serious to me so something has happened in there.
“They’ve scored the goal, they want to get the ball back to the centre circle but why don’t we let them have it?
“What are they going to do? It’s our kick-off so we can take as long as we like. I don’t understand why we’re holding on and getting involved. It’s crazy.”
Allinson agreed that there are plenty of positives to take from the match but the facts remain that Saints have now conceded 15 goals in just seven games.
And Allinson has plans to stop that.
He said: “I’m hoping to bring at least one more in this week, a centre-half, and then we’ll have to look at the rest of the squad.
“That puts the centre-halves at the club under pressure and there are three or four who have to come to the table and quickly.
“I can make those statements as I’ve seen too many goals go in.
“We have to defend better and we have to do things slightly better and different to what we’ve done in the opening seven games.
“But we’ve scored 13 goals so there are positives in what we are doing.”
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