New Hucknall Town boss assesses squad in friendly ahead of Boston trip
New Hucknall Town manager Tris Whitman continues to assess his new charges and set up a midweek friendly this week ahead of Saturday's UCL Premier North trip to Boston Town.
That follows a topsy-turvy first couple of weeks for him in charge which saw a superb win away at Lincoln United, a postponed match and a loss last Saturday to Deeping Rangers.
The Boston trip is the second of three successive away fixtures, having only one home match in December, against Melton Town on the 21st.
The next two are tricky fixtures and Whitman elected to set up a friendly behind-closed-doors fixture this week, utilising the whole squad and the reserves.
“This will give us an opportunity to take a good look at all the players and also give them some competitive action ahead of the trip to Boston,” he said.
“We also plan to get the lads continuing to work on our shape and tactical undertaking as well.
“We have some really talented players in the squad, we just need to have more belief.”
Whitman has had time to reflect on last weekend's 3-2 disappointing defeat at Deeping, which saw the Yellows lose a little ground in their quest to pull away from the lower end of the table.
“Defeat to Deeping was particularly frustrating, especially after we started the game so brightly and deservedly went ahead after 15 minutes with another Niall Towle goal,” said Whitman.
“Sadly we quickly let momentum switch due to looking really nervous and going away from the things that had brought us success early on in the game.
“We struggled to deal with direct balls, mainly from the opposition's keeper, and quickly found ourselves 2-1 down going into the half-time break.
“We started the second half with more control and started to dominate the ball and territory, but rarely created any clear cut chances and got punished by a quick counter which made the task even more difficult.
“We continued to fight and probably played our best football once we were two goals behind and the pressure was off, and we got ourselves back into things with another Niall goal which set up a tense finish to the game.
“But a lack of quality in the final third saw us waste a number of good opportunities to create chances, especially from set pieces, and the game ended in a disappointing defeat.”
Hucknall have offered free transport to Boston this Saturday. Places are limited and and full details are on the club's website.