Injuries hamper Marlow as they suffer 'freak result' against South Park

Marlow boss Mark Bartley accepted Tuesday night's 5-0 defeat to South Park wasn't acceptable for a side with genuine promotion hopes this season, but he also understands the reasons for it and expects the Blues to bounce back by going on another unbeaten run.

Results haven't exactly been brilliant for the Blues of late, with the sides last league win coming against Chipstead just under a month ago, however in that run of draws and losses they've played three promotion rivals in Uxbridge (1-1), Bracknell Town (1-3) and Hanwell Town (1-1) so it's a bit of an exaggeration to suggest they've dramatically fallen out of form.

Tuesday's defeat was an unexpected blip, with Sam Tutt, Sam King (two), Melford Simpson and Dom Pires scoring in a resounding win for the hosts. However, the mitigating factors were that Marlow had up to 10 players out injured, including first choice central defenders Alex Salmon and Adam Richards and their go to front three of Nnamdi Nwachuku, Khalid Simmo and Kameron English.

“The wins haven't been there recently,” said Bartley. “But we've had good draws against Uxbridge and Hanwell where we played really well. Against Hanwell we should have been out of sight by half-time.

“But yesterday was just an unacceptable performance.

“We’ve got a number of players missing at the minute and it’s not helping us.

“I’ve been wondering if I have enough to get us through this period, because we've got 10/11 out right now and it's just a bit too much to carry.

“We’re going to have to try and bring a couple in.

“In my opinion there was still enough out there to give a much better performance than what we did. That’s the long and short of it really.

“You’re talking about big names who are out for us. Alex Salmon and Adam Richards are both out, that’s our centre half partnership who give us the foundation for the clean sheets that we get. Kameron English and Nnamdi Nwachuku and Khalid Simmo.

“That’s the attacking end of the team, so our centre backs are missing, the front three are missing, and Chris Ovenden and Ashleigh Artwell as well.

“We had Jay Welch out with COVID, and you have to go easy on those players when they first come back.

“I’m going to bring a couple of players in, but our performances recently have been fine, so I’m just chalking yesterday down to a freak result.”