Abbo on Adders Stalemate
Hinckley AFC manager Carl Abbott wants to deal in the positives after his side fought back from two goals down to draw with Atherstone Town at the weekend.
Two early goals meant that the Adders raced into an early lead, but Hinckley responded well and salvaged a point courtesy of Luke Richards and JJ Melligan.
In fact, the former Wolves Casuals boss felt that his side could have gone on to win the game, praising the reaction of his squad.
He said: ‘We want to win games, just like our supporters do, but we found ourselves two goals down after ten minutes. They were really poor goals to concede so that got us off to a bad start.
‘But I’m going to deal in positives and it’s a hell of a fightback. There was a great heart and togetherness shown by the team in a testing situation finding ourselves two goals down.
‘But we’ve fought back, got ourselves back in the game, and there was only one team going on to win the game, one team really contesting to win the game.
‘I’ll take a lot from that today. It was a testing day at the office but we showed great heart, and I’m really pleased with where we’re at as a group.’
Injuries are continuing to test the Hinckley squad to the limit, with David Blenkinsopp, Luke Richards and Lee Butler picking up knocks on Saturday to further the fitness worries in the side.
‘Lee Butler has also seen the game out with a hamstring strain. Luke had to come off, which wasn’t something we were looking to do – Luke was part of a system change that we were looking to make.
‘Blenky (Blenkinsopp) is probably more born out of inactivity, to then start playing at full tempo, you’re going to get little niggles like that. We’re not going to see the best of Blenky until we get him into a pre-season and get some conditioning into him.
‘Sam Agar was up in Yorkshire this weekend, and our well-documented issues with centre halves mean that we’re really just getting by there at the moment.
‘The problems we have are well-documented and we’re going to have to be patient. We should have Alex Penny back next week, we’ve got a few irons in the fire and Kristian (Ramsey-Dickson) is going to be out until pre-season now.
‘We have the players that we want to work with at the football club, and we’ll get by until we’re full tilt. We’ve had a difficult season with injuries.’
But Abbo was keen to praise right back Mitchell Tomlinson and striker Greg Pearson, who have had to adapt to becoming a centre back partnership in recent weeks, and says the duo’s flexibility is evidence of a great team spirit.
‘Credit to Mitchell who’s done a fantastic job slotting in at centre half, and Greg who’s gone above and beyond for the football club. Many people would have sulked their way out of the club but he’s done an admirable job for us.
There’s a great spirit about us in the dressing room.’
