Marlow lift spirits with deserved three points at Northwood after tough run

Naheer Omar Nawaf. Photo: Theo Edwards

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After five straight defeats in all competitions, Marlow finally got back to winning ways in the league with an impressive 2-1 win at Northwood on Tuesday evening.

The Blues took control of this match in the second half with goals from last season’s top scorer, Naheer Omar Nawaf (53') and Flavio Gyawu-Kyem (64'), and while Northwood grabbed a goal back through Dan Williams in the 72nd minute, the visitors held on for a much-needed and fully deserved three points.

Afterwards first team coach, Aaron Steadman said: “Another positive performance. Plenty to work on and improve as well.

“Great to see so many Marlow fans at Northwood.”

Having identified a weakness in the heart of midfield in their opening set of matches, manager Mark Bartley was confident he and the team could address their issues in the coming weeks. He’s already moved on one or two players he felt weren’t up to the task of playing for Marlow in the Southern League Central Division and is in the process of bringing in one or two more with the experience to carry the Blues forward with a bit more confidence.

Defensively and across the forward line, Bartley is confident the squad is strong enough to compete at the right end of the division, but it’s now up to them to prove that on a more consistent basis.

On Saturday, they were somewhat unfortunate not to take something from a 3-2 home defeat to in-form Hadley at Oak Tree Road.

The Blues led 2-1 in that match thanks to goals from Kwesi Adu-Gyemfi Ntim (25') and a Hadley own goal and that’s the way it remained until the 71st minute when Isaac Stones (71') dragged the visitors level before Luke Alfano’s 92nd minute penalty saw Hadley snatch all three points.

Having taken encouragement from the performance - if not the result - Marlow travelled to struggling Northwood confident they could turn around their poor run of form. They took the lead in the 56th minute when Nawaf lobbed the ball over the Northwood keeper. They then made it 2-0 just after the hour mark when Gyawu-Kyem drove into the box before cutting back inside his marker and firing home.

The result lifts the Blues to 15th in the table ahead of Saturday’s game at home to ninth-placed Hitchin Town.

After Tuesday’s win, Bartley spoke to club media officer, Ben Linton: “It was very much a continuation of Saturday. I thought we played really well on Saturday, and I said to the boys afterwards, really, we just need to maintain that level.

“That’s been a challenge for us because so far this season they haven’t been consistent with that. Particularly first half I thought we were fantastic today. We did exactly what we wanted to do with our approach play it’s just that our final ball wasn’t quite good enough. But second half we came out, we made a few tweaks at half-time, and we managed to get a deserved three points.

“It was a little bit hairy at the end, because you concede a goal when we shouldn’t have. When you haven’t been winning games of football and you concede a goal and it’s 2-1, it’s a bit hairy, but I thought the players were fantastic today. They maintained the performance levels that I asked for so yeah, I’m really pleased.

“He’s (Flavio) come into the squad like a lot of players have. It’s a relatively new group. Some haven’t played for us before and some haven’t played at step 4 before so it will take a while for it all to gel together. We know that there is still work for us to do.

“What you’ve seen today is the reason why we’ve brought him (Flavio) to the club. He’s a fantastic traveller with the ball and I thought today he was decisive when he received the ball. We’ve been trying to get him to do that a little bit more and he’s scored a great goal today and probably could have had another one. He created havoc all game so I’m pleased for him, and it should give him some confidence.

“I think we’re a good side and I think we’re very close to being a very good side. You look at the players we didn’t have available today. Calvin was away, Seb D’Aversa’s still injured, Mitch Parker wasn’t here today. When you look at those players who still have to come back in, the squad looks pretty good. We’re looking forward to the Hitchin game, we've just got to make sure we continue to improve and if we do that, we’ll go into every game with the full belief we can pick up the points.”