DARLINGTON manager Josh Gowling says that his team will be going back to basics after their 4-0 thumping at Tamworth.

For 25 minutes, Quakers looked the more likely to score, but once the league leaders scored twice in three minutes, there was only one winner. Quakers looked exactly what they are – a bottom of the table side that is lacking in confidence and is ineffective at both ends of the field. This was the third time this season that they have conceded four goals or more in a game, and the sixth time they have failed to score.

“We need to get back to basics and do the little simple things well,” said Gowling. “The big thing for us is to be more resilient. Every time the ball came into our box, we looked vulnerable and that’s something which has to be addressed first and foremost, then the rest can come after that.

“I thought we had some good chances in the first 25 minutes, but the reality is, we looked very vulnerable from set-plays. We said before the game about what Tamworth do is very effective.

“For the first goal, we had first contact with the ball and didn’t clear it. For the second one, we’ve been working on playing out from the back and we shot ourselves in the foot, and for the fourth we spoke about keeping their player on his right foot, and he scored with his left.
“As a defender and a former centre-half myself, it’s got to mean more. You’ve got to defend your box and stop people getting into certain areas. We didn’t do enough of that.

“We didn’t take our chances when we had them. When you look at the chances in the first half, some of their goals came from similar chances. We missed ours and they took theirs. In the second half, we didn’t lay a glove on their keeper. A big worry is that we’re getting into good areas but the keeper isn’t making saves. They looked like a top of the table side, and we looked like a team where we are. There needs to be some changes.

“Tamworth were stronger than us physically, which was the biggest thing for me. They went direct at times, they spun the balls behind really well and they fought for that second ball.

“We’re going back to the drawing board now. We go again and make sure that we turn this around.”

Quakers’ prospects of getting something from the game looked good in the first 25 minutes.

They comfortably dealt with Tamworth’s early attacks and nearly took the lead on 11 minutes when Jacob Hazel played a sweeping pass for Cameron Salkeld to cut inside and hit a right foot shot that keeper Jas Singh saved low down to his right.
Mitch Curry, on his return to the team, then set up Will Hatfield to strike a dipping right foot shot that just cleared the crossbar.

But Quakers conceded a poor goal on 27 minutes, when they failed to get to grips with a long throw by Jordan Cullinane-Liburd, and Jamie Willets had time to turn and knock the ball past keeper David Robson.

It was 2-0 just three minutes later, when Quakers lost the ball when trying to play out of their 18-yard box and Nathan Tshikuna sidestepped a challenge and beat Robson with a left-foot shot.

Tamworth almost scored again in the opening minutes of the second half, when Willets headed a good chance over the bar, then Tshikuna put a diving header inches wide.
But there was no let off for Quakers on 68 minutes, when Ben Milnes picked his spot from the edge of the area.

Robson made two good saves, but he had no chance in the second minute of stoppage time when Finn cut in from the right, rode a couple of half-hearted tackles, then beat Robson with a left-foot shot that went in off the post.