Blues show their guile in away win
Bartley’s side rediscover their cutting edge at Leatherhead
After struggling to break down Southall and Guernsey in successive league matches, Marlow returned to winning ways with a comfortable 2-0 victory over Leatherhead on Saturday.
Under new management and with the introduction of several new players, hosts Leatherhead were a far tougher proposition than they might have been just a few weeks ago, however, ran out fairly convincing winners thanks to goals from Dawid Rogalski and Ben Mulley in either half.
Rogalski fired an understrength Blues side in front from the penalty spot before Mulley capped off a fine away performance, and one which lifts them up to third in the Isthmian League South Central Division, level on points with second placed Walton & Hersham.
“I’m really pleased,” manager Mark Bartley said.
“It’s going to be one of the harder places teams have to go this season.
“They’ve got a new manager in, and he’s started to turn things around. It made preparing to play them a little more difficult.
“They had brought in some new players, some of which had come down from levels above so they’re a good side.”
On their injury issues, Bartley added: “We had players out.
Aaron Watkins in goal wasn’t supposed to play due to injury, we were trying to bring in a loan keeper but that fell through at the 11th hour, so Aaron had to play.
“Alex Salmon was unavailable, Elijah Olandunjoye, who’s been big for us this season, he was out injured. Louis Rogers had also taken a blow to the head the week before and had to have stitches in his face. We had three of what has been a relatively settled side out.
“We had to change how we approached
it tactically and to be fair on us it worked out for us.”
Earlier this month, Bartley complained of a lack of guile and composure in possession after their 10 defeat to Southall and last weekend's 1-1 draw at home with Guernsey, however, he worked on their positional play in training on Thursday and it seemed to have the desired effect.
On Saturday they’ll get their first look at league leaders Northwood at Oak Tree Road and have the added incentive of reeling them in a little should they make it back-to-back league wins.
“Dawid Rogalski got one from the penalty spot in the first half and then Ben Mulley scored the second one in the second half,” Bartley added.
“We created a lot on Saturday. They’re not a bad side either so they had spells when they had the ball, but they didn’t really hurt us. We tried to work on getting ourselves into better positions.
“We did some work in training on Thursday on that and that gave us a bit more of a threat in the final third. Josh Boorn came in to make his first start for us and he was fantastic, a great debut from him. He won us the penalty in the first half.
“The win was down to a combination of things. We had a little more energy in the middle of the park, which Josh gave us.
“And the work we did on Thursday to give us more of an edge in attack also paid off because we were very good.”
Northwood have looked the most settled and consistent side so far this season, but Marlow have the chance to cut their lead at the top to just four points with victory on Saturday. The Blues also have a game in hand on the leaders so shouldn't be ruled out of the title race just yet.
Bartley said: “Northwood have had the benefit of having a settled side from last season. Second half of last season they were a good side and he’s managed to keep the players together and strengthened in a couple of areas, so they’re a good side.
“But it’s an opportunity for us to pull them a little closer to us so that’s what we’ll look at doing. We know it will be a tall order because the reports we’ve had when we’ve had them watched have been favourable to them. They do a lot of things well but there are one or two ways we think we might be able to exploit them. We’ll try and win the game.
“The league is really competitive, and you can see that by how close a lot of the teams are together.
“We’re getting better and improving all the time.”