A FEW days can be a long time in football. After an excellent win at Brackley and a good performance in the draw at home to Blyth, spirits were high heading down to Kidderminster. Pre-game it felt like our performances were getting incrementally better with each game. There was a belief we could get a positive result from a tricky trip.

With the obligatory tray-baked cottage pie consumed, the game got off to a slow start. Having slowly felt our way into the Blyth game, there was no panic as the home side started to crank up the pressure.

We looked pretty solid, but in one moment of madness it all went to pot. There will always be some who think the game has gone soft and that leaving something on the opponent is part of the game, but the rash challenge from Joe Wheatley had red card written all over it and there was no surprise when the referee confirmed it. If it had been a last-ditch lunging challenge to stop a goalscoring chance I could have perhaps understood why Wheatley dived in, but it was halfway in the Kidderminster half with no real threat to us defensively. It was needless.

What came after the red card was probably a perfect storm. Facing a full time Kidderminster side that hadn’t played in the midweek, we looked slow and sluggish. It was as though we had emptied our fuel tanks trying to find what would have been a deserved winner against Blyth. It soon started to unravel.

Being down to ten men, there are certain things that can be forgiven but slack marking is not one of them. Reorganised to deal with our numerical disadvantage, we went on to show similar defensive flaws that have shown their ugly head in at least four of the five games this season.

To say we have a laissez-faire approach to marking would be a bit of an understatement. Bar the goal conceded to Blyth, we’ve conceded from crosses in the other four games. It’s a recurring theme that needs to be stomped out if we’re going to do anything this season. Whether it’s concentration, communication or decision making, we seem to have a problem with opposing players getting in between ours and being found from crosses. It probably hasn’t helped that we had to change our defence around to deal with Ben O’Hanlon’s suspension but I think the sooner Tommy settles upon his first choice back four, the sooner an understanding can be formed among them and hopefully we look a little less slack in picking up opposition players.

I heard the phrase ‘When I win, I win. When I lose I learn’ on the TV over the weekend and I thought that was very apt for our predicament. We’re only five games into the season. The league isn’t won or lost in that period. There have, however, been lessons to learn both in defeat but also how we’ve conceded goals.

I have no doubt this can be a good season for us. Even at this early stage of the season there have been so many positives, including the spirit shown as we tried to claw our way back in to the game on Saturday and that makes me feel we should have a more enjoyable season this year compared to last, but there are still some kinks that need to be ironed out. Let’s pull no punches, over the last couple of years in the National League North we have had some real defensive horror shows. Those appeared to subside once Tommy turned the tide after the win at Leamington. Let’s not allow those mistakes creep back in and ruin what could be a successful season.