Bromley boss determined to avoid relegation (From News Shopper)

Bromley boss determined to avoid relegation

9:00am Wednesday 23rd November 2011 in Bromley By Mark Ritson

BROMLEY manager Mark Goldberg admits his side could face a relegation battle if they don't start picking up points sooner rather than later.

Goldberg saw his side go down 2-1 at home to fellow strugglers Hampton & Richmond last night, falling behind after just four minutes, while midfielder Lewis Taylor scored an own goal to gift the visitors a two-goal advantage after 17 minutes.

"Within four minutes, we showed their player inside instead of outside, and the result was a cross and a goal," said the boss.

"Suddenly we're 1-0 down and my players didn't respond the way I would have expected them to.

"It was absolutely gobsmacking to see your own player put the ball into his own net but at the same time the fact that we let them break the way we did from the halfway line just sums up the first 20 minutes of a very, very dismal display.

"We finally picked things up in the last 20 minutes of the first-half and probably had enough chances to come back and been 3-2 up at half-time."

Hakeem Araba reduced the deficit with a well-taken goal moments before half-time, and despite coming out into the second period fired up, Bromley just couldn't carve out any efforts on goal.

And it looked as though the home side could get back into the match when Hampton right-back Lewis Ferrell received a second yellow card just minutes after his initial booking for coming back on the pitch without the referee signalling.

"We had the belief we could have recovered things in the second-half, but unfortunately we created just one opportunity even when they were down to ten men," said a dejected Goldberg.

"That's just really inexcusable really."

"Other than a potential penalty decision which I'm not going to make a fuss about, although my player apparently fell in the box and the referee saw that - the actual foul took place outside the box - we didn't make any of our possession count and there was no craft or good movement.

"We played into Hampton's hands, they sat back and they mopped up all the pressure and we showed how naive we were, and we showed we lacked the ability to break down a team who are third from bottom in the league."

Goldberg believes he and his management staff are the right ones to turn things around, and if the opportunity to bring in new players presents itself, they will be brought in to help climb the table.

"All I can do is apologise to the fans and to everybody at the club for where we are at the moment but I believe I've bounced back from much worse things before," admitted the former Crystal Palace chairman.

"I believe I can assist Bromley to get out of this situation and to avoid a relegation fight at the end of the season - I'm determined to do that.

"If I do need to bring in one or two players, or swap things around, I will do that but I was hoping I didn't have to do that, but it's quite clear we just lacked a little bit of craft going forward.

"We're made of strong stuff at the club, I've got broad shoulders and I believe we've got what it takes among the management team to get us out of the situation we're in."

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