Hinckley AFC manager Carl Abbott was pleased with his side’s return to winning ways against Studley yesterday – but said there is plenty more to come.
The former Wolves Casuals boss praised the way his side “did enough” to comfortably take all three points but admitted there were several aspects of the game that the players could have done better.
He wants perfection ahead of a big month coming up. He said: “It was composed. I don’t think we really got out of third gear. We could have played with more intensity, a quicker tempo, we could have moved the ball quicker and I thought we could have caused them more problems.
“When you think back to the Southam game, and how we approached that being goal hungry, I think we could have kept our foot on the gas for the whole 90 minutes and scored more goals.
“But I’d have taken any kind of win today and in truth I’d have taken any kind of performance. So to play well and win well, I’m obviously pleased.”
Abbott said his side were desperate to return to winning ways after just their second league defeat of the season at Littleton last week
“They were tricky waters to navigate today.
“The lads were really downbeat after last week. There were over a hundred people there that saw that we were actually very good. Littleton rode their luck and I don’t begrudge them the win but we certainly deserved more from the game.
“But you don’t always get what you deserve in football. Sometimes you drop points and we did last week.
“That led to a little bit of nervousness in the dressing room at half time when they got a goal back but in the end we got the win with another good scoreline and another good performance.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve played poorly but this gets us back moving in the right direction and we look forward to Tuesday now.”
Abbott was also full of praise for his full backs, Lee Thomas and James Williams. Both have shown superb energy to provide the team’s width in recent weeks and Abbott is delighted with the way they offer support in attack and defence.
“The diamond is a difficult shape to play. It’s takes perseverance and some tweaking. Your width has to come from your full backs.
“We have another outlet with Javia spinning off and running the channels but I think we’ve honed the system now. It’s second nature for Lee and James to go on and give us that width.
“When they go forward, we want them to play like wingers and just go all the way.
“We work the system well and I don’t think we ever look painfully narrow. When we’ve played the diamond a couple of times in previous seasons I think we have looked too narrow but the system’s working well now.”
