Click the photo below to watch our interview with new signing, and debutant, Josh Tomlinson.
Manager Kevin Horlock reflects on Saturday's home defeat to Alfreton.
KH: No, I don't think it was a spectacle by any means. It was a difficult game for us to come into. Obviously, they're quite direct and, give them credit, they're good at what they do, and I just thought we struggled in that. I thought we dealt with the long balls quite well defensively, but you can only do that for so long. I think on the turnover, we needed to be a little bit braver and play, but we then started giving it back and playing into their hands a little bit and going longer. Obviously, eventually, if you're going to play like that, eventually something's going to drop to them, which it did. And then we obviously then had a mountain to climb. I think we've been good defensively for a while now, not just this season, but you can only defend for so long. I thought we were under the cosh. Obviously, they play in good areas. They're obviously quite a big group that look for percentages. They've got the long throws and we're defending for long parts of that game. And if you don't have no respite when you have the ball and you've got to be brave to stay on it and work hard and make runs forward, if you're not going to do that and you're not going to get out and eventually, obviously, the breakthrough comes for them. Just, again, another long ball, a flick on. I thought we won quite a lot of the aerial battle, to be fair, but what they do really well is keep it alive. They get bodies around it. They don't make it easy for you to clear and it stays in your defensive third, which then becomes a problem.
DK: A plus side for us is Josh made his debut.
KH: Yeah, look, he's come in. I knew what they were about. I knew they were going to be direct.
So he's obviously a big, big lad. He's aerially really good and he's strong as well. So he gives us, he bolsters us up a little bit and I thought to a point it worked. But unfortunately, the tweak didn't really work in an offensive manner where we just didn't look a threat today. The ball didn't stick. We didn't really get behind them and it resulted in us getting exactly what we deserved, which was nothing.
DK: Anything pleasing for you today?
KH: I think Josh's debut was pleasing, obviously, coming into a team that you don't know many people. I thought Keiran was outstanding again, which we know what Keiran is, but just a little bit disappointed with everything else, really. We didn't land on enough second balls. Today wasn't about playing pretty football. It wasn't about patterns of play. It was about rolling your sleeves up and competing with a really big side that played percentage football and unfortunately, we came up a little bit short today.
DK: Moving on, we're away to Warrington who are within a couple of results, touching distance of us.
KH: Yeah, look, it's still early days. Alarm bells aren't ringing. We're still getting acclimatised to this level. I think the biggest difference I've noticed is physically teams are a lot bigger, a lot stronger, a lot quicker, more direct. So we've got to get used to that sooner rather than later, but then we've got to have the strength and courage to then impose ourselves. And look, we are going to have to go a little bit more direct at times, but we're going to have to do it a bit better where we play into better areas. We have to understand it a bit more with second balls, but when we get opportunities to play football, I want us to play football as well. So yeah, Warrington's obviously another long away journey, which they all are in this division. That's not an excuse. We know where we are. We know what we've got to do and we need to be ready for it.
DK: Obviously, Luke and Kyle are out for a little bit, but is Jayden injured?
KH: No, Jayden wasn't. Obviously, one had to be left out today. So we'll see where we are. I'm not sure if Hammo or Ingers are going to be ready in time for Saturday. We'll have to see. Obviously, we'll train Thursday and see where we are.
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