We are not firing on all cylinders at the moment, admits Tonbridge Angels coach Justin Luchford

TONBRIDGE ANGELS coach Justin Luchford says he cannot dwell on their FA Trophy exit at the hands of lower-league Heybridge Swifts in midweek.

Despite preparing for their FA Cup First Round trip to League Two side Exeter City on Sunday, Jody Brown’s side progressed through to the Second Qualifying Round of The FA Trophy after beating Tonbridge Angels 2-1, after a 3-3 draw at Longmead Stadium last weekend.

“Well, it’s not been a good week,” admitted Luchford, who lost to Bostik North opposition.

“When you score three goals at home, you should be looking to progress to the next round.  Over the two games, I felt we probably just didn’t quite do enough.

“Saturday was disappointing as we were leading at the break and if we can get the next goal then we win the tie.

“We made a couple of defensive mistakes on Saturday and ultimately that cost us the result.

“For Tuesday, it was a bit of a different story.  I don’t think we were good enough on the night collectively.

“We are not firing on all cylinders at the moment and they had the momentum. 

“Luke Callander was decent in both games and he was probably the difference overall.

“We were bitterly disappointed on Tuesday and that hit us hard, but we cannot dwell on that. 

“We have a good side, a number of injuries and people in and out over the past month or so has affected our consistency but we know we can do better.

“It is hard to take as early exits in both the FA competitions means no extra money for the club, which is disappointing, but as I say we can’t dwell on that, we just need to be better.”

Steve McKimm’s side are underperforming in tenth-place in the Bostik Premier with 21 points from 15 games, made up of six wins, three draws and six defeats and they travel to Enfield Town tomorrow.

“We move on to Saturday now and a tough trip to Enfield.  We have to put the last couple of weeks behind us and go again,” said Luchford.

“We are not a bad side, it was only a couple of weeks ago that we were fantastic and beat Leiston, so we know what we are capable of.  Is it back to basics?  Maybe a little, as we need to start doing our jobs consistently.

“That’s probably the biggest problem this season is that we haven’t been consistent and we don’t know what we are going to get one game to the next.

“We have had some games where we have been good for one half but not the other and games where we are good one week and not so good the next.   Putting your finger on it is difficult.

“Anyway, we worked hard in training last night and we will go into Saturday’s game with confidence.  Why will we have confidence? Because we believe in what we are doing and we believe in our players to get results.  We all have to work even harder and we have no doubt things will change sooner rather than later.

“Enfield will be tough but we know we can beat anyone on our day, so we go there to put a shift in.  If we do that and follow instructions we will come away with a result.”

Tonbridge Angels are 12 points adrift of league leaders Dulwich Hamlet and five behind fifth-placed Leiston.

“With regards to our league position, it’s not great. However, as with most season’s everyone is beating everyone so if you can put a run together then you can make up the gap quite quickly,” added Luchford.

“I’m not saying that we need to have a run of 10 wins, but we will put targets to achieve over the next 15 games going into the end of 2017 and if we hit those targets then we will be around where we want to be.”

Luchford revealed that defender George Beaven is “probably a week away,” and that “a few of them are carrying a couple of knocks,” going into their trip to sixteenth-placed Enfield Town.

He added: “We can’t moan about injuries as everyone gets them. We just need to put in consistent hard working performances that will get us points, consistency and confidence.”

Visit Tonbridge Angels website:  www.tonbridgeangelsonline.co.uk

Enfield Town  v  Tonbridge Angels
Bostik Premier
Saturday 4^th November 2017
Kick Off 3:00pm
at The Queen Elizabeth Stadium, Donkey Lane, Enfield, Middlesex EN1 3PL