Royalists brought back to reality by double defeat
Following an uplifting win over Flackwell Heath last week (August 29), Windsor were brought back to reality by a 4-2 defeat to Hilltop at the Middlesex Stadium on Saturday.
Hilltop are one of three sides to have got the better of the Royalists in the league, beating them on home turf with goals from Walid Rashid and Mahamud Mohammed, who scored a brace each.
Stand-in skipper Luke Appleton and substitute Yuri Cardoso, meanwhile, were on the scoresheet for Mick Woodham’s men with the defeat pushing them back down to ninth in the Combined Counties Premier Division North table.
Speaking of the result, Appleton said: “It was disappointing, especially after the week we had had prior to the game – picking up seven points out of a possible nine in six days.
“We didn’t start how we wanted to, and it took us a while to get used to their good movement when going forward. That caused us to be 2-0 down just 20 minutes in.
“The manner of the goals that we let in that game weren’t good enough. We weren’t broken down as such, but we gifted them to Hilltop by making the wrong decisions in the wrong areas.
“We were a lot better in the second half and looked much more fluent going forward after a couple of changes. We got a goal back early but after all the hard work to get back into the game we gifted Hilltop another goal.”
Appleton added: “We knew it would be a difficult start to the season, with most of the very good squad that Coops (Mark Cooper) and Brooko (Luke Brooks-Smith) worked hard for and built now gone.
“Just Gouldy (George Gould), Hally (Ben Hall) and myself stayed on when
Coops left in the off-season and Mick came in. We know things require patience and we are trying to find a real solidified squad which, I believe, is now slowly coming together.”
Windsor were also dumped out of the Premier Challenge Cup after losing 3-1 at AFC Croydon Athletic on Tuesday. Reflecting on their disappointing cup exit on Twitter, Woodham said: “I would like to thank the group of supporters who travelled to the game last night and I appreciate the efforts involved. I am disappointed with the outcome, we conceded two needless
goals, worked hard to find a way back into the game with a well-worked goal and then gifted them another when we were in the ascendancy.
“I never expected us to compete physically last night, but I did expect us to improve on Saturday's performance. Another hard lesson handed out.”