WE’LL FORM A UNITED FRONT
PAUL HUGHES has warned his Hayes & Yeading side not to forget their previous league encounters with Farnborough as the pair meet again in the battle for promotion from Southern Premier South.
Hughes’ Hayes fired a 25-minute four-goal blitz in the opening encounter of the two early pacesetters back in November before coming away with a comfortable 4-1 win.
The pair then met again at Farnborough’s Cherrywood Road last month and played out a rather cagey goalless draw with a ‘no lose’ mantra between these two title rivals neutralising the obvious quality on show from both sides.
In between, Taunton Town came from nowhere to steal the title from under their noses, leaving Hayes and Farnborough with tricky play-off semi-finals to negotiate.
Both came through – on Tuesday, against Weston-Super-Mare and Met Police respectively – so the pair lock horns once again. Hayes boss Hughes is expecting a completely different game.
“The league games between the sides will not matter at all come Monday,” Hughes told The NLP. “Playoff finals aren’t like that.
“You could tell they changed their way of playing after the first game in the way they set up for the second, and I expect Spencer
[Day, Farnborough manager] to change it up again for the final.
“When you have a reputation for scoring goals like we do, sometimes you can over-prepare, and they were clearly very wary of us when we played them at theirs last month.
“For the quality of players they have, they were very defensive and very cagey, but Monday is a final and a completely different mindset. Anything can happen, it’s all about getting that bit of on day.” Hughes believes he has a squad of players that can compete at the next level, but admits the club are still playing catchup when it comes to getting the infrastructure right off the field.
The club spent five years ground sharing at the likes of Woking and Maidenhead United before their SkyEx Community Stadium finally opened – far later than anticipated – in 2016.
Hughes said: “The board have done a great job for the football club but they will admit there is still a lot of work to be done if we are to play in National League South.
Expectation
“We still have no bar, no conference hall and attendances are still down on where we would like them to be.
“We have to be able to generate money off the field to be able to compete at Conference South level but I know the board are working hard and plans are up to speed.
“However, we can only do our job on the field and I’m delighted with the way the season has gone. Taunton Town went on an unbelievable run to win the title and thoroughly deserved to do so, and we were very happy to finish second.
“That was above our expectation this year so to be in with a chance of promotion going into the last game, I’m delighted.
“The lads have been brilliant and it’ll be some achievement if we can finish it off by going up.”