It’s not even Christmas yet! Eastbourne Borough boss upset by team’s goal gifts

He takes the Sports to high-flying Chelmsford tomorrow wanting to see more defensive resilience than was witnessed in Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Braintree – and a brighter performance than was seen in a 1-0 defeat o Hampton & Richmond in midweek.

Borough v Braintree in pictures by Lydia and Nick Redman.

How Sports were hampered by Hampton – report by Kevin Anderson, picture gallery by Andy Pelling.

Bloor was upset on Saturday by his team’s set-piece defending after both Braintree’s goals came from corners, rendering Greg Luer’s fine finish worthless.

"If you can’t defend from set-pieces it doesn’t matter,” he told Borough press officer Kevin Anderson. “Two corners and they’ve scored two goals.

"You can play all the football in the world. In the first half we did really well football-wise but it’s not Christmas and we’re giving away goals from set-pieces really, really cheaply.

“The two goals were really similar. So it doesn’t really matter how we played – that’s irrelevant if you’re giving away cheap goals from set-pieces.

"Fair play to Braintree. In the second half they went man to man on us and they did a job on us, so give them credit. But we can’t give away goals like we did.

"If we’d gone in leading by Greg’s goal then they couldn’t do the job they did on us. But if you’re gifting sides goals, it changes the game.

"We had a debrief afterwards and a few choice words were said. We need to show as a group a better defensive desire. You need to be prepared to put your body on the line to stop conceding for me, the management team, the supporters and the directors.”

Against Hampton, Bloor admitted the Sports – who are now 16th in the table – simply weren’t good enough.

"We got what we deserved – absolutely nothing. So it’s back to the drawing board. We will have trained hard (last night) and we go to Chelmsford on Saturday.

"Teams are finding out about some of our good young players, banking up on our wide players, so we have to go back to the drawing board.

"We’re disappointed but we’re still in a better position than we were after the same number of games last season.”