Bartley thinks Marlow were on Santa’s ‘naughty list’
Marlow FC: Three consecutive defeats see Blues fall out of play-offs but they respond with win at Sutton
The Christmas period couldn't have gone much worse for Marlow, with Mark Bartley saying his side must have been on ‘Santa’s naughty list’ after they were edged out of the play-offs following three successive defeats. However, they managed to lift themselves out of their festive rut with a much-improved display in Wednesday’s 3-0 away win at Sutton Common Rovers.
Having fallen to sixth – and out of the play-off spots – following their 2-1 defeat at home to Southall on Saturday, the Blues managed to get right back on the horse at Church Road in mid-week, where second half goals from Dawid Rogalski (47') (right), Kai Hamilton-Olise (56'), Khalid Simmo (59') earned the Blues their first league win since December 2 – when they thrashed Binfield 8-1.
Goalkeeper Aaron Watkins posted afterwards: “Haven’t been able to tweet this in a while. Three points and a clean sheet.” While one of the Blues’ goal scorers, Kai Hamilton-Olise posted: “Assist and another goal today. Great win.”
Bartley felt the Blues didn’t play poorly during those three consecutive losses either side of Christmas, however, the fine margins went against the side, and they weren’t quite as resolute in defence as they had been, conceding more than two goals in all three matches.
Marlow intend to challenge the likes of Chertsey, Southall, and Raynes Park Vale for promotion and while they’ve given themselves plenty of work to do with that run of results, they are now back up to fifth, five points behind fourth placed Leatherhead with two matches in hand.
Bartley's Blues had lost only twice in their first 14 matches; however, they tasted defeat three times within the space of eight days to put a dampener on their Christmas and New Year celebrations, losing to Westfield (2-3), Hartley Wintney (2-3) and Southall (1-2).
Reflecting on those defeats ahead of Wednesday’s restorative win, Bartley said: “We didn’t really play very well against Westfield, it was a bit of a scrappy game, but I didn’t feel like we did enough to win the game,” said Bartley.
“Against Hartley Wintney we cost ourselves with a couple of individual errors. In fact, most of the goals
that we’ve conceded have been down to us predominantly. Even against Southall, it’s two individual errors that have cost us the game.
“Fair play to the boys because they’re coming into the dressing room and are apologising to the rest of the boys for it.
“It’s just been one of those spells where any mistake that we make is being punished. That is football sometimes.”
Bartley wasn’t unduly concerned about the side's loss of form over Christmas either, and Wednesday’s win at Sutton will enhance that feeling for him.
Against Southall they also created the lion's share of the chances and had more than double the number of penalty box entries compared to their rivals, however, they trailed in the only statistic that really matters with a late goal from Dawid Rogalski (89) proving to be a consolation following strikes from William Montague (27) and Jaden ThompsonBrissett (81).
“We’ve not been playing too badly,” he added. “The second half on Saturday we were very good in fact. But we’re in that rut where it’s not going for us.
“Against Southall we felt we did enough to win the game, but we’ve come away with nothing. I was looking at the statistics and they had six shots all game and we had 16. We had 21 entries into their box, and they had eight. We had eight corners to their three. Whilst that doesn’t mean everything, it shows that we weren’t terrible in the game. We’ve got to cut out the individual errors, we know that, and we’ve also had a couple of knocks like everyone else at this time of year, but we must draw a line under it and have to focus on going to Sutton Common and getting a result.”
This period of fixtures leaves the Blues fifth in the table, 11 points behind leaders Chertsey, who they also have two games in hand over. They’ve also got to play the leaders twice this season, so it is still possible for the side to get back into title contention.
“With the New Year’s Day games, quite a few of the teams around us lost, it’s that kind of year with these random results,” said Bartley. “Everyone is going to have a lot of games to play and there will be times when our rivals lose momentum. We’re prepared and we’re ready and we’re eager to get out on the pitch at Sutton to try and get a result.
“We’ve got Aaron McLeish-White coming back into the squad and Noah Amissah who is another forward who has been out for around a year. He’s been playing for Holyport recently and is ready to go again. We’re focused and we believe. We see Chertsey are right up there now, but we’ve got them to play twice. We’d probably have to do the double over them but we’re ready to give it a massive effort for 2024 as we must have been on Santa’s naughty list for Christmas.”