Town’s manager stays positive despite string of defeats

Sat. 5th Jan. Evo-Stik Southern Div. One Cirencester Town 4 Melksham Town 0 Tues. 8th Jan. Evo-Stik Southern Div. One AFC Totton 5 Melksham Town 0 Sat. 12th Jan. Evo-Stik Southern Div. One Melksham Town 0 Paulton Rovers 4

MELKSHAM Town FC’s manager, Kieran Baggs, has said that the club and its supporters should not panic despite a run of five league losses.

Following defeats against Evesham United and Yate Town, Town has gone on to suffer another three losses against Cirencester Town, AFC Totton and Paulton Rovers, putting Town in 11th place in the Southern League.

Kieran told Melksham News, “We’ve had a really bad run – with so many of the squad missing for various reasons like injuries and suspensions, we are really stretched. We are giving 16-year-olds their debut and asking them to step up and play in the Southern League, which is proving a very difficult ask.

“However, there are plenty of positives to be taken from where we are in the league at the moment – we are level with Street who came up with us from the Toolstation League and we are ahead of Highworth and Thatcham, who were both promoted into the Southern League this season. 

“Halfway through the season we are just outside the top 10 in the league; if someone had offered me that at the start of the season, I would’ve taken it! It’s not nice to lose five times on the trot, but that’s football. If the losses had been spread out over the season no-one would have batted an eyelid, but to have them back to back, it looks like a rotten run – and it is.

“We don’t want to be the downfall of our own success. We have exceeded all expectations this season, so when we do lose, people start to panic. And when we start winning, people get excited. There is no reason to be alarmed by the run of losses – just look at where we are in the league. We have a much smaller budget – one of the smallest in the league, so things like this will take its toll.

“We need to plug away and keep fighting. We have put in so much hard work over the season – we need to get back to how we started, back to those sorts of levels of performance. We need to keep grassing and get this monkey off our backs. The lads need to show a passion to play for Melksham, a passion to give a performance to be proud of.”

Reflecting on the recent games, about the away game to Cirencester Town, Kieran said, “It’s a harsh scoreline, I don’t think we deserved a 4-0 loss. We were pushing for an equaliser at 1-0 down, but an error on our part gave Cirencester their second goal, which pretty much killed off the game. 

“It was harsh, but you have to take the loss and move on. Cirencester are in the top three of the league, and they have a big budget, meaning they can throw their weight around a bit more.”

Next, Town played away to AFC Totton, losing 5-0. Kieran said, “We were disappointing in this match –  this is probably the most disappointed I have been in my time as manager – there have been lots of highs, but hardly any lows – but this was the most disappointing. It wasn’t ideal to have to prepare to be in Southampton on a Tuesday night with the bare bones of a team, but we just didn’t give enough – and I told them that after the game.

“The effort levels just weren’t good enough, it felt like they were just happy to turn up. Once we conceded the first goal, they had accepted defeat before giving it a go. We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

“However, Totton are one of the top teams. Their strikers, Justin Bennet and Craig Feeney, are up in there in the league as the best and their wages combined probably equals about half of our whole budget. So we have to keep things in perspective and stay on level ground – be realistic with our expectations for the team.”

Town’s next defeat came at the hands of Paulton Rovers, with the home crowd at the InfiLED Arena witnessing a 4-0 loss. “It’s one of those things,” said Kieran,  “I don’t want to have to repeat myself, but we are having a bad run at the moment- but we need to stick together. 

“I had a good chat with the team after the match – yes we are low on bodies at the moment, but the application from the team in the second half was not good enough. We had over 450 fans at the game this weekend, which is unbelievable, and we didn’t give them the performance that they deserved.”

Looking ahead to the next game away to Thatcham Town this week, Kieran said, “We need to dust ourselves down now and search for the win to end this horrible run. I’ve told them that I am looking for three things – positive attitude, a good work ethic, and desire – this all needs to be given, and it needs to start happening now.”