Two goals up but two points dropped: Robinson felt Magpies let Farnborough off the hook

Liam Dulson celebrates scoring Maidenhead’s opener against Farnborough. Photo: Darren Woolley

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Midfielder Matt Robinson said afterwards that Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Farnborough felt like a defeat to Magpies who’d been cruising to all three points at one stage in the second half.

Robinson suggested he and his teammates might have been guilty of complacency, and of taking ‘their foot off the gas’ too much as they conceded a two-goal lead in the second half.

Liam Dulson’s thumping low finish midway through the first half, was added to by Josh Umerah’s close range headed shortly after the interval, while the Magpies will be kicking themselves that they failed to take a host of other promising first half opportunities.

A trademark Liam Dulson strike gave us the lead on Saturday ™️ pic.twitter.com/s7SWQVQryL

— Maidenhead United (@MUFCYorkRoad) February 9, 2026

This game against one of the division’s relegation-threatened sides should have been put to bed, either in the first half or before Mason Bloomfield crashed home a header to get Farnborough back in the match on the hour mark.

Billy Clifford then scored from the penalty spot after substitute Amir Hadi had been fouled in the area by Asher Yearwood and any momentum or control Maidenhead had on the game was lost.

They might have won it in the closing 20 minutes, with Josh Popoola sliding a decent chance wide from Liam Dulson’s cross. But they also might have lost it, with Bloomfield again going close just minutes after Clifford had drawn the two sides level in the 74th minute.

“For us it does feel like a loss right now,” said Robinson. “We’ve given up two points rather than it feeling like we’ve earned any points to be honest. Maybe the problem is that we felt like we were cruising at a certain point. But we’ve then taken the foot off the gas and conceded two soft goals.

“They had a bit of a resurgence when they were two goals down, I’ll give that to them, but a team of our experience should have been able to handle being 2-0 up.

“You could say their first goal is a good header, I’d say it’s more poor defending. From the whole team from its inception. We all must take accountability for that, but I don’t think it was a particularly well worked goal. I don’t think they’d earned it, but none the less, they did and they carried on and emerged with a hard-earned point.

“When you go 2-0 up, you assume you’ll have enough to see the game out. Even after they’d scored, I thought we’d see the game out to get three points. We shouldn’t be conceding two goals like that and should have scored more ourselves as well.

“It’s a team game and we’ve proven that we weren’t the best team today. Personally, for me, being 2-0 up, we should win the game.”

Where United go from here is up for debate. A promotion charge that had been gathering pace under interim duo Ryan Peters and Aaron O’Brien has seen the brakes applied by three matches without a victory. They remain seven points off the top seven in 11th, with a game in hand on most of the teams above them but chances to have moved into the play-off spots haven’t been taken of late.

They next go to 17th placed Tonbridge Angels tomorrow evening (Tuesday) hoping to snap their recent three-match run without a win in the league.

“Yeah, of course, that’s (finishing in the playoffs) been the aim all season,” added Robinson. “Initially, the aim was to go up automatically. It doesn’t look like that will happen now but there are teams who pick up momentum towards the end of the season and pick up results. We won’t stop until it’s mathematically impossible. But as of right now, there are a lot of games to play, a lot of points to play for and I don’t think we can say we’re out of the race by any stretch.

“We’ll go again on Tuesday and then have a big game away at Torquay next weekend."