KJM SPORT REPORT Clevedon Town 6 Millbrook AFC 0

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Details: Created on Monday, 24 October 2022 09:00; Last Updated on Monday, 24 October 2022 09:32; Published on Monday, 24 October 2022 09:00; Written by KEVIN MARRIOTT Cornwall football's touchline ace

We’ve all heard the terms "After the Lord Mayor’s Show" and "Football’s a Funny Old Game" both of which could be applied after Millbrook’s second half surrender at Western League rivals Clevedon on Saturday.

A week after ending Bridgwater’s fantastic 15-match unbeaten start to the campaign, Macca Brown’s side were torn apart and conceded five goals in a disastrous second 45 minutes.

So it was understandable to find Brown in reflective mood as he tried to pick his way through their latest Premier Division performance.

He said: “I don’t try to be clever in my reflections on here. I don’t leave subtle messages for the players to read and take on. I’d like to think I’m honest and rational about what I’ve seen every week.

“I felt a little uneasy about the plaudits we received last week for beating Bridgwater because as a manager you always have one eye on the next game and I know what this league is like.

“I said a number of times this past week that if we thought the Bridgwater result was enough, then Clevedon would put us back in our place, and that’s exactly what they did.”

Brown said he had no complaints about the result, or the margin of it.

“You hope that when you’re not at the races your opponents aren’t at it either, but full credit it to them they were superb,” said Macca.

“They scored some magnificent goals in the second half, real goal-of-the-season stuff and sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and say they were better!

“They were purring in the second half, but there’s no doubt we contributed to that. You can’t let teams at this level find their rhythm and give them too much respect and that’s what we did.”

Millbrook went into the game on the back of four successive wins but it counted for nothing. Brown said: “The challenge for us after last week was to do it again and quite frankly we failed miserably.

“We missed a couple of players from last week, but I’m not making excuses for us at all because nine of the 11 who started last week started on Saturday.

“Some may think a team that can rise to the occasion and beat the best is a positive thing, but when it’s actually a case of picking and choosing your performances and showing that huge level of inconsistency, I personally think it’s as weak as it gets.

“People may think that’s quite harsh, but I’m not losing my head here having lost 1-0, we’ve conceded six goals and it’s not the first time this season we’ve looked so fragile.”

Brown went on: “The first half was a performance that I’ve seen many times before, it was okay. It was a performance after a long journey where the legs weren’t quite doing what they wanted them to do.

“We lacked a bit of sharpness but there wasn’t a lot between the teams, we had a couple of good chances and you can accept it maybe one of those where sometimes it takes time to get going.

“They probably edged it at 1-0 at half-time and we needed to do more but I didn’t really see what was coming at that point.

“You hope that you shake the legs out and grow into the game in the second half and that’s often the case, but the second half was a disaster from kick-off when their striker danced through the team like they were mannequins and I knew it then it was going to be one of those days.

“While it remained 1-0 we tried to get a couple of subs ready and inject some freshness, and then bang-bang, two goals in three minutes and the game was taken away from us. It really was that sudden.

“That is a real worry for us at the moment, we are conceding multiple goals in quick flurries, it happened at Illfracombe, Bridgwater and now again against Clevedon - all long away games.

“People talk about character and of course we’ve shown it at times, but there is a real softness about this team and those flurries of goals is all the evidence you need to see that and it’s not acceptable.

“We shouldn’t be a team conceding five or six goals, and it’s happened three times already this season, twice against mid-table sides like us and that’s not good enough.

“In those hot moments you have to stand up and be counted, and we seemingly have too many players going into their shell at that point.

“I think I’m pretty honest about us, when we are at it we can beat anyone, but we recognise that there are teams with more individual quality than us in this league, so we have to be 100 per cent at it every game and when we are not, it is difficult.

“Our strength is as a team and that’s always been the case. We can actually handle not having the desired quality on the day because that’s when we roll our sleeves up.

“It was similar at Clevedon last season where we scraped a 0-0, as well as Shepton Mallett (1-1) Bridgwater (0-1) and Saltash (1-1) on Boxing Day.

“We recognised those days we weren’t there in terms of the quality but we came with the right mentality, dug in, defended for our lives and got out with at least a point in each game.

“But if we are five per cent off it physically or mentally we have a problem, and Saturday was a combination of both, and then we were unfortunate that Clevedon were in the mood as well.”

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