United boss Chris Beech gave us his thoughts on the frustrating home defeat at the hands of Leyton Orient shortly after full time on Tuesday night.
“It’s very disappointing to lose, it always is,” he said. “We’ve got to try our best to stop losing. We need to start winning very quickly because that’s the industry we’re in, that’s football.
“In terms of the performance, their energy, we had moments in the first half with some good quality, second half didn’t quite get the clear chance, but I was really pleased with the players’ efforts.
“But to lose a game like that is hard to take on the chin, very avoidable, but they benefited from a big kick and a lob and have won the match. You could see in their celebrations the difference between them thinking they have no real chance of winning, to winning a game.
“When you’re in runs like this it happens, and we will work very hard to make sure we come out the other side.”
“The lads are disappointed,” he continued. “They’re really, really gutted. All you can do is carry that feeling, understand it and make sure it means more when you get the opportunity to play again.
“In this one we worked some good areas, because you want to try and win a game. We were constantly looking for the clear-cut chance, and when we did get it we had the free headers, and shots, but they were off target and we didn’t get the win we wanted.
“Of course it’s frustrating, it’s hard to take when you know you’ve worked so hard to try and win a game.”
With the club having topped the division just a short time ago, he conceded that a run of results that aren’t going your way can sometimes push the progress that’s been into the background, providing another challenge to be faced.
“There’s a lot of young players and slightly older players, but this is their first season of responsibility when they’re playing more regularly,” he explained. “The club’s made great grounds of progress to have a squad that’s committed like that.
“In the current climate results make it hard to focus on things like that, and it makes negative comments easier to come to the fore, but in terms of where we were when I took over, we’ve made good progress.
“Look at what happened last January, the club managed to secure good finance from transfers and we’ve managed to put this squad together, in financially hard times, they were giving everything and they did great to take us up to the top of the league.
“When you reach the top everyone looks at you. Maybe the different breaks, Covid, the training, it’s difficult to mention, they’ll always be thrown at me as excuses, but it’s fact.
“I was speaking to Eric Kinder before about Lewis Bell and he told me he’s still not at 100 per cent. He did have it bad, but I’ve got 15 more of those in my squad. They worked very hard, ran hard, played well enough to win, but we didn’t get what we deserved in my opinion.”
With the game having been largely dominated by the Blues, he said: “We’ve lost this one because they got a touch of luck, we needed a little bit of quality, but definitely not through a lack of effort.
“The players gave good energy and commitment to the game in tough conditions. We didn’t score in the first half, but we dominated possession and the shot count, we just weren’t on top in the statistic that matters, which is goals.
“They scored against the run of play with a big, long ball. Players make individual decisions, we don’t coach that, but it happens in football. It happened today and things like that tend to happen when you’re in situations like this. Paul [Farman] has been superb for us this season, but these things happen.
“We change it by sticking together and by vying for the same thing. We have to support each other in that. At the same time we have so many games coming so fast at us in a period where we’re not able to train correctly for it, and we’ve been put in this surreal, unique position.
“We need to attack each of the 12 matches to the best of our abilities, try not to give anything away and try our best to gain something. That’s football, and working hard in any daily aspect of any job.
“If you see a lack of commitment or energy towards something you look to change that yourself, but I don’t see that. The players have got great potential and they’re working very hard to achieve results for our club.
“We’ll all work very hard, get our head down and make sure we represent ourselves correctly. You’re responsible, and the players take that responsibility into their performances.
“They need to be right on point, give their best shot in the dozen opportunities they’ve got, commit like they did tonight and free up and enjoy the game, because you’ve got to try and enjoy the game while you’ve got the responsibility to try and win it.”
With having got themselves into good situations in the final third, we wondered if shots and crosses were being snatched at or rushed with the players anxious to set things right again as quickly as possible.
“I don’t know about that, we got into some good areas,” he replied. “Callum shot over the bar, Lewi hit a good shot slightly over, Rhys had his headers, one or two got in each other’s way and the ball didn’t quite break.
“There was attacking threat, defensive stability and commitment to performance. Pressure changes everything with family, home, children, work, deadlines. So maybe it’s a bit of that where the lads have looked at where they were and they feel, almost trying to get it back too quickly type feeling.
“Then when they can’t, because every time you try and do it, things are getting cancelled and you can’t actually play. We get to now and it’s almost getting your workload lumped on your desk and say get that ready for tomorrow for 7am.
“They’re working tirelessly, working very hard to try and achieve something. I can only commend them for that. Of course I’m not saying well done for the situation we’re in, and of course I understand we need to get back to winning football matches.”
On what appeared to be an injury to Paul Farman in the second half, he commented: “I think it was his ankle. We thought it might be his thigh again, so I told Magnus to get warm, but he was ok.
“We don’t know any more on Brennan Dickenson at the moment. His scan is tomorrow. We’ve got no information from Ireland yet on where they are with JJ Kayode’s ankle, Ross our physio is speaking to them tomorrow.
“And Dean Furman hasn’t told me that he’s going [to play for South Africa], no.”
Click HERE to watch an interview with Chris Beech on iFollow United now.
Click HERE to see a clip from this interview on our YouTube channel. Follow the same link for more FREE content right from the heart of the club.
