“WE NEED to improve.”
That is the blunt assessment of Binfield boss Roger Herridge after his side slipped to a third straight defeat in just eight days at the weekend, going down 2-1 to lowly Brackley Town Saints at Stubbs Lane.
The loss sees the former table-topping Moles slip to fifth in the Hellenic Premier Division table after a run of defeats which began with the FA Vase loss against rivals Bracknell Town.
And Herridge says the nature of the defeat against the Robins is still having a negative effect on his squad.
“It’s disappointing but I suppose that’s football for you,” Binfield’s manager told The Wokingham Paper.
“A week’s a long time in football and you go from the elation of some good results against Thatcham and Highmoor-Ibis to the disappointment of an FA Vase defeat followed by a couple of league defeats.
“I’m certainly not going to take anything away from Bracknell, they deserved to win on the balance of play.
“But at 1-0 up with 11 minutes to go, when you watch your opponents miss a penalty and miss a couple of glorious chances you start thinking it’s going to be our night.
“But it obviously wasn’t and from there we’ve had a little bit of a hangover.”
He added: “What we’ve got to try and do is snap out of it as quickly as possible.
“There’s no easy games in this league anyway but they certainly don’t get any easier.
“This Saturday we play Brimscombe and Thrupp.
“Their league position tells you they’re struggling but they’re a very good side.”
Before this run of losses, which included a 1-0 defeat at Highmoor-Ibis, Binfield had embarked on a string of five wins on the trot in all competitions, prompting Herridge to say his confident side “currently believe they can beat anyone”.
But just over a week on there is a very different mood and the boss is calling on his older players to help his young side through this difficult spell.
“I suppose sometimes when you do lose a couple of games you’re looking around in your team and that’s where you’re looking for that little bit of experience,” said Herridge.
“You want your senior players to galvanise you a little bit and keep the team together.
“We lack that in a few places.
“That’s maybe an area where if I could pick up an experienced player in the right area, that would certainly improve us.
“The only consistent thing you get with a predominantly young side is inconsistency.
“We’ve got to make sure we learn from it.
“It’s not all doom and gloom but we’re disappointed and it hasn’t been a good eight days.”
Despite the defeat and slide down the table, Herridge is keen to quickly refocus his side’s efforts and get back on track as soon as possible.
“I never got too carried away with the highs when we were top of the league and I’m not going to get too carried away with the lows,” said the Moles manager.
“It felt a terrible result at five o’clock on Saturday and by Monday it is still a bad result but doesn’t feel quite so bad.
“We can’t do anything about that and you’ve got to push on.
“The league table tells you that we’re in and around where we want to be.
“If we win our game in hand we’re back up into the top two or three.
“We need to improve.
“Certain players need to improve as well.
“Nobody likes to lose two or three games on the trot and we need to work that little bit harder.
“We need to get back on our game and we’ve certainly got things to work on.
“But we’re looking forward to some more positive results over the next week or so.”
As well as youngster Luke Hayden making his full Binfield debut, Ben Poynter made his Moles bow last weekend following his arrival from Bracknell.
And Herridge confirmed the club have a seven-day approach in for an unnamed Hellenic Premier Division winger while JC Etienne has left the club to rejoin Maidenhead.
Binfield face Brimscombe and Thrupp at Stubbs Lane tomorrow.
