Consistency the key for Port says Terry

• Southport Visiter
• 25 Aug 2022
• BY TERRY OWEN

SOUTHPORT assistant manager Terry McPhillips admitted there was plenty of room for improvement after a 4-0 humbling at Alfreton on Saturday.

A rush of goals saw the Port go in 3-0 down at the break after Bailey Hobson had given the hosts the lead in the 32nd minute, followed by a Dayle Southwell strike eigith minutes later before Fraser Preston added a third on the stroke of half time.

Southwell compounded a miserable afternoon for the Port with his second and Alfreton’s fourth midway through the second half.

McPhillips said he was pleased with the Port’s performance in the opening half hour but readily admitted too many mistakes were made.

He said: “I thought we were good for the first half an hour.

“Obviously the first goal should have been saved.

“The build up play, we should have done better and the goal should have been saved, Cam knows that.

“But that’s football, he made a mistake.

“The second goal is a big punt down the middle which the centre half has missed because the lad is a massive handful, they get the second ball and it’s a wonder strike.

“You can’t let the ball bounce and if it does, this lad is going to stop you heading it so the others have got to give some cover.

“But you have to hand it to their lad, he put it away with aplomb.

“The build up for their third goal wasn’t great between Cam and Adam and some of the decision making was very poor.

“So for the first thirty minutes we were very good but for the last 15 minutes of the half we were very bad”.

Three goals in 13 minutes proved too much of a mountain to climb as the Port defence struggled to contain Alfreton target man Dayle Southwell all afternoon.

And McPhillips admitted the Port backline failed to meet the challenge of snubbing out the danger from the forward.

He continued: “At 3-0 we had to get an early goal in the second half but we didn’t, although I thought we started the second half a bit better.

“In the end they play a certain way with their big fella who’s hard to stop.

“We haven’t defended the set plays well enough, we haven’t defended the big fella well enough so we’ve lost comprehensively in the end”.

Whilst disappointed with the result, McPhillips acknowledged there’s plenty of positives to build on, especially with two wins on the board already but made it clear the team need to be more vocal if they’re to cut out mistakes.

He continued: “We’re a young squad and we were very quiet today.

“More talking would have helped a lot today in lots of different areas so that’s something we’ll have to work on.

“Communication is massive. Not letting the ball bounce is massive, organisation at set plays is massive and we’ve been very good at all of those things.

“If you go back to Tuesday night (the 1-0 win over Darlington), if you go back to the first game (5-3 win at Boston) we can’t keep having a great win then a big defeat.

“Stopping goals is going to be a big thing so we’ll work on that but we need to start scoring some.

“We have a small squad and they’re all good lads but it’s hard for us when we’ve got injuries.

“But it will help when we’ve got everyone back but there’s work to be done.

“Chris Doyle is a positive and Declan being on the bench is another.

“Like I said, the first 30 minutes was fine, a good away performance but once we do concede that first goal we have to do better mentally”.

Southport now have a clear week with no midweek match to fine tune things on the training ground before the visit of Telford United to Haig Avenue this Saturday.

Tickets for the match are priced at £15/13.50 with concessions of £10/£11.

Juniors (aged 12-17) are £5 and $6 whilst children (under12s) are admitted free.