Remy Clerima: Pretty or ugly, points are all that matter for Maidenhead United

Remy Clerima, right, with Will de Havilland and Josh Popoola. Photo: Darren Woolley

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Winning pretty or winning ugly, it doesn’t matter to Maidenhead United’s French defender Remy Clerima - the only important thing to him is that the Magpies continue picking up the points.

They’ve done this with efficient regularity of late, particularly at home where they’ve won 10 of their 17 games and lost only four times.

They’re also unbeaten at York Road since local rivals Slough Town stunned them on Boxing Day, coming from behind to beat them 3-1, despite playing with 10 men for more than half the game.

Since then, there’s been one other slip-up on home soil, when Farnborough were allowed to crawl from under their rock at 2-0 down to snatch a barely deserved 2-2 draw.

Interim boss Ryan Peters was ‘absolutely livid’ with his side at the end of that game. but they’ve responded well to the setback, winning their last four at home and taking down two potential promotion rivals in the process, Dagenham & Redbridge and Maidstone United.

Saturday’s 2-1 win over Maidstone wasn’t the prettiest or most fluent. But they were ‘comfortable being uncomfortable’ after Clerima’s downward header from a Josh Popoola corner was cancelled out in the 71st minute by Riley Court’s firm finish.

That goal certainly winded the hosts, but they recovered enough composure to score a late winner from the penalty spot, Popoola converting in the 92nd minute after substitute Alfie Pendlenbury had been wrestled to the floor.

“It was a tough game, and we always knew from the get-go it would be a tough game,” said Clerima after the final whistle.

“We’re at a stage where it doesn’t matter how you win. Pretty or ugly, the points matter. This is what the good teams do, they find a way to win games.

“My goal was great, but it was due. I’m happy with the team and happy that we won. Yeah, we’ve worked for a long time on set pieces and it’s one of my jobs, and other players, to get goals from set pieces.

“Yeah, they were pushing and it’s hard to defend well for 90 minutes. But as Ryan has said, we must be comfortable being uncomfortable. Today we didn’t manage to keep the clean sheet, but we found a way to score another goal.

“I think we had slightly the better chances. They had a few chances but overall, I think ours were the better ones. Liam hit the post in the first half, and we had other chances as well. It might have gone differently but we’re glad to win the match and keep this home record going. We’ve gone unbeaten for a while and have a lot of home games coming too.

“Alfie is a very good threat. He’s a tough player to defend against as you saw today, winning us the pen. He’s done his job.

“I wouldn’t take the penalty personally; there are strikers who need the goals and that’s what they do. I’m glad it went it, however, it goes in.”

Clerima and Peters don’t care how points are earned at this stage of the season. And if their home form remains strong to the end of the season, they’ll surely cement one of the division’s play-off spots and give themselves a chance of bouncing back to the National League at the first time of asking.

Tonight (Tuesday), they face third placed Worthing away, another team with a formidable home record - better than Maidenhead’s in fact. But Clerima says they won’t be going there looking to batten down the hatches and come away with a point.

“Every game is going to be tough now, but we take it game by game,” he said.

“Worthing is next and we’ll do what we need to do to go there and take three points, we’re not looking for anything else.”