Wingate & Finchley boss Knight says close fought games are becoming too familiar
Matt Johnson of Hornchurch and Olu Oluwatimilehin of Wingate during Hornchurch vs Wingate & Finchley, BetVictor League Premier Division Football at Hornchurch Stadium on 31st August 2019 - Credit: George Phillipou/TGS Photo
Wingate & Finchley manager Spencer Knight says it’s happening too often that they run high-flying teams like Hornchurch close but just fall short.
The Blues suffered a 3-2 defeat to Hornchurch with Charlie Ruff and Alphanso Kennedy netting their goals in the match.
Urchins striker Chris Dickson scored twice in the opening 16 minutes before Wingate pulled both of them back before the half-time break while also missing a penalty.
Dickson completed his hat-trick five minutes in the second-half to leave Wingate with nothing to show for their efforts.
"It's becoming a familiar thing that we're giving these sides higher up the division a good game, but not quite getting what we deserve out of the games," Knight admitted.
"We started the game poorly and went two behind, deservedly so really, and then we made a couple of tweaks tactically to get ourselves back into the game.
"For the rest of the first-half we were excellent and we missed a penalty as well, otherwise we would have been 3-2 up at half-time, that reaction was exactly what I was after though.
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"At 2-0 down, I feared it could have been a really bad day at the office for us, but fair credit to the boys they dug in and got us back into it.
"Ultimately in the second-half we couldn't get the job done."
Knight did heap praise on Hornchurch striker Dickson but says his defenders must learn to play against players of his quality.
"He was the difference in fairness as he's a real handful and his third goal especially was top draw.
"At this level to have a player of his ability makes a real difference, but that's what we're going to come up against sometimes, and our young defenders need to learn quickly that they're some good strikers in this division and if you switch off they'll punish you."
Wingate have been scoring plenty lately but still missing a number of chances while leaking too many goals which is proving costly.
"It's exactly what I've been saying to the players, we need to be better in both boxes, it's not rocket science but we've got to finish our chances and eliminate errors in our own that give cheap goals away.
"We look like we're going to score every week but at the moment we're leaking too many, so we'll be working on that.
