O'Brien praises Magpies' character and perseverance, even in defeat

Josh Umerah and Josh Popoola

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Maidenhead United weren’t the best version of themselves in Tuesday’s home defeat to Ebbsfleet United, and maybe they haven’t been for several weeks now.

But their character can’t be questioned, even when the quality of their football can.

They started slowly again at York Road, pressed into making rash decisions by an Ebbsfleet side who appeared intent on taking their scalp and moving above them in the National League South.

The first goal, from former player Josh Coley, came very much with the run of play on the half-hour mark, but Ebbsfleet’s second was very much against it, with Maidenhead having dominated the game since half-time. They’d finally awoken to their task and deserved to be on level terms, so it was a gut-punch to find themselves further behind to Toby Edser’s strike.

Interim boss Ryan Peters complained bitterly about Ebbsfleet’s third, scored from the penalty spot by Kwesi Appiah after Owen Cochrane had been harshly adjudged to have handled a cross in the box.

But when the chips are down the best sides show their mettle and Maidenhead did that in the closing stages. The game was done, or so we all believed, but they kept plugging away, getting a goal back in stoppage time through Liam Dulson and then another through Matt Robinson a minute or two later.

The impossible, unthinkable comeback proved to be just beyond them, but it wasn’t for a want of trying and only a splendid save from Matt Hall prevented the Magpies achieving it.

“That’s why I’m really pleased with the boys we’ve got,” said Aaron O’Brien after the final whistle.

“We did it on Saturday, it was 0-0 in the 93rd minute on Saturday and managed to score at Eastbourne.

“We did the same at Tonbridge. We’ve come from behind on a couple of occasions this season to win 2-1.

“So, we know we can get back into games and score goals. We pride ourselves on being defensively solid though and unfortunately tonight we weren’t there.

“We’ve kept 14 clean sheets this season and we’ve just reminded the boys in there.

“There’s still plenty of games to go and points to pick up. Be disappointed but we’ll pick things up again on Thursday, look at the issues we saw, and we’ll go again on Saturday. We’ll look forward to another big game, that’s what these boys want to be involved in.

“If we win on Saturday this game gets forgotten about very quickly and we can move on.”

O’Brien and Peters weren’t happy with the performance of the officials in Tuesday’s defeat - feeling they were on the wrong side of too many poor decisions - the penalty Ebbsfleet were awarded being the worst of them.

“The handball I felt we very harsh on first glance,” he said.

“The guy has fizzed it in and I don’t feel like Owen has had time to move his hand for it to be a deliberate movement and for him to give a penalty.

“I don’t want to speak ill of the referee, but one thing I was disappointed about tonight is they repeatedly stopped play.

“They also stood in front of the ball and stopped quick free kicks, and the ref has done nothing about it. I tried to speak to the fourth, and the ref, their player has kicked the ball away and there’s no yellow card.

“Those are the easy things the ref can get right, but it’s a difficult job. We’ll look back at the two decisions but, on first glance, the penalty is harsh.”

The Magpies have lost twice now to Ebbsfleet this season and played well at times in both games. Tonight, they only really got going after the interval and they paid the price for that. And they can expect to be punished again for a similarly sluggish start at home to leaders Dorking Wanderers on Saturday.

“You can play well, as we have at times against Ebbsfleet, and not win,” added O’Brien.

“And you can play horrendously. As we did at Tonbridge and win the game in the 90th minute. That’s why we love football because sometimes you don’t have to play well to win.

“But nine times out of 10 if you play well you end up getting on the right end of results. We played well at their place for 60 minutes and played well tonight for a half. But against teams like Ebbsfleet you can’t do that. We had to have that performance for longer.

“When you’re pushing you leave yourself open to the counterattack. First half we didn’t have enough control in the game.

“Every time we won the ball back, we went too direct and tried to cut them open straight away. If we’d had more control and kept possession we might have had a better outcome. But that’s something we’ll look back on and work on at training on Thursday.”