Liam: Stay together and we’ll cross line
SOUTHPORT manager Liam Watson is confident his side can rediscover their winning formula – and has called on all Sandgrounders to help the club over the line into the play-offs.
Watson’s men were pegged back to a 2-2 draw at Alfreton Town on Saturday having led 2-0 at the break.
It stretched their winless run to five games in the National League North with York City moving above them into sixth spot.
But Watson insists victories will come in the club’s remaining nine games, which start with Saturday’s home clash against Kettering.
“We’ve got nine games left and we’re still in the play-off places, so this is the time for every single Southport fan, every player in the squad, the kit man, the physio, everyone to go ‘we’ve been knocked and knocked and knocked,’ we’ve won one out of eight – but we won none out of the first eight and then we’ve had a spectacular run and we are where we are.
“Do you honestly believe we haven’t got wins in us between now and the end of the season? If you did you’re kidding yourself because the performance (at Alfreton) was okay.”
It was no coincidence that both teams benefited from the sloping pitch in Derbyshire with Southport kicking downhill in the first period and Alfreton the second half, with all four goals coming at the same end of the ground.
Dylan Vassallo and a freekick from Charlie Munro put Southport in the driving seat, but the loss of Connor Woods – in the lead-up to Munro’s setpiece – proved pivotal.
“The slope is always going to be a factor,” said Watson.
“We had it in the first half and at times we played some good football. I was really disappointed to lose Connor because he had started to have a big influence on the game – he’d made the first goal and was brought down for the freekick for our second.
“He was causing them problems in the pockets of spaces he was taking up – he’s had a really tough up and down period but if you’d have seen him in training you’d understand why I’d put him back in the team.
“He was a huge loss for us.” Fortunately for Watson and his squad they have no midweek game to contend with in preparation for the visit of Kettering.
“We are getting right down to the bare bones – this week has come at the best possible time for us as a team, a club and a squad,” admitted Watson.
“We’re just going to give everything we’ve got in these last nine games to get us somewhere we should never even have thought we’d get to at the end of the season.
“Trust me, I’ll do everything I possibly can to get these over the line and into the play-offs.”
Fortunately for Southport, teams in and around them have also struggled for form in recent weeks with Hereford, Boston and Darlington all enduring mixed fortunes.
“We’ve stayed in there because we gave ourselves a cushion from our fabulous run,” said Watson. “The cushion has gone, it’s now all on. Sometimes you have to go into the last five games having to win every single one of them to win a league or whatever. These lads have never been involved at this level, whether they’ve won stuff or they haven’t.
“At times against Alfreton they showed incredible naiveity and then they just dug in at the end and you think ‘we could lose this’ but the character comes through.
“We’ve had so many knocks and bangs and kicks in the proverbials – but at the moment we’re still here and fighting, still in position and there’s an awful lot of teams who would want to swap places.
“When I look at the run-in I see wins in that from now to the end of the season, one hundred per cent I see wins in it. I’m not losing any sleep –this (Alfreton) was a very good point.
“Let’s all stick together as Southport people always have done and let’s get over the line.”