Southport’s search for 20-goal striker
LIAM Watson was left to rue the lack of a 20-goal-a-season striker after his Southport side were beaten by Banbury United at Haig Avenue on Tuesday.
Looking to bounce back from the weekend’s 1-0 home defeat against Gloucester City, Port took a first-half lead through Jordan Archer and created numerous openings during a dominant opening spell.
The home side continued to boss the game after the interval but were hit with a sucker punch in the 78th minute when Jay Williams levelled. And just 90 seconds later Aidan Elliot Wheeler scrambled home a second for the visitors.
It was a bitter pill to swallow for Watson and his team, who now sit 15th in the National League North table.
“We are a mid-table team, that’s where we are, and we’re a mid-table team because we don’t score enough goals,” admitted Watson.
“That was Jordan’s tenth league goal, which is quite a few down on last year but he’s been injured quite a bit and hasn’t had a regular person alongside him, which affects him.
“So we have to work really hard and come up with a goalscorer or additional goalscorers in the team. As a football club, we need to find someone who is a twenty goals a season striker because they make all the difference. Any successful side has someone who seems to be on the scoresheet every week and we haven’t had that since Marcus (Carver) went.
“We have to find that foil for Jordan, find that someone who, when it’s nil-nil they turn it into a one-nil win and when it’s the other way round they will nick you a goal late on and drag you a point.”
It was a much better performance than Saturday’s loss against Gloucester – but it still ended in defeat.
Archer’s goal came in the 38th minute from a corner taken by Charlie Munro – the frontman rose well to head past the despairing dive of Jack Harding in the Banbury goal. After that the Sandgrounders looked in control but Banbury had other ideas,
In a golden spell for the visitors Williams headed a superb goal from free kick from distance that beat everyone in the 78th minute and just 90 seconds later Joe Adams, who had an excellent game, seemed to get his feet tangled up and the ball ended up in the net via Wheeler.
Southport threw everyone forward in a desperate attempt to get the equaliser but it was not to be and the visitors headed home with three points in the bag.
Elliot
“I’ve no idea how we’ve lost that game,” said boss Watson.
“We never looked in any trouble and the should probably have been over by half time.
“You can always get done on a set-piece and we shouldn’t have got done from where we did but I think we just have to look at ourselves.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had as many balls in the box, set-plays, long throws – everything went in the box and we didn’t take the opportunities. We didn’t even hit the target an awful lot, but that’s been our Achilles heel all season, in front of goal.
“Territorially we battered them but fair play to them, they hung in and dug in, they were on a bad run themselves. They got the goal and that seemed to lift them – but there’s enough experience out there to shut the game down for five minutes and we didn’t, that’s what’s come back to bite us.
“There were positives. Joe Adams looks like he’s going to be a real find and I thought there were some really good performances in there, yet somehow we’ve come away losing a match we should have won.”