Ford trying to find the right balance

Banbury United have been scoring for fun in recent home games but on the road, it has been a different game.

United have chalked up four straight home wins but suffered three away defeats on the trot, the latest coming at Evo-Stik League South leaders Stourbridge on Saturday. Ford had mixed feelings after the defeat and admitted it illustrated the dilemma he faces.

He said: “We went to Stourbridge with the intention of trying to win the game and play with some expression. Whereas, last season we went to Slough who were top and played on the counter with the intention of trying to nick something which we did.

“I think that shows we’ve made progress by having that approach to playing against the top teams this season even though we didn’t get the right result on Saturday.”

Ford also knows his players have to make sure they do not concede, especially when they are on top.

He added: “We’re scoring plenty of goals at home but we’ve got to make sure we stop leaking goals when we are in control of games, which is what happened at Stourbridge. There are times in games, like on Saturday, when we’re in the ascendency but come out of that period of being in control a goal behind.

“Teams like Stourbridge don’t allow that to happen, even in the period in which we dominated the game. They don’t concede and that is probably down to the difference in experience between the two teams.

“They understand what it takes to get through those periods and we don’t. But it’s a learning experience for my players, we’re still a very young side apart from a few experienced players.

“We can cause a lot of teams problems with our attacking threat but my concern is that we’ve not kept a clean sheet for the last seven games.”