The 1^st Team suffered another disappointing result on Tuesday evening, losing by three goals to nil at Leighton Town, the identical score by which Leighton had won on the opening day of the season.

Once again, Ashford suffered late cry-offs with skipper Billy Jeffreys taken ill and new signing Dorian Smith, unavailable as his wife is about to give birth.  Manager Jamie Lawrence came back into the starting line up, whilst there was a debut for Cayman Islander, Luigi Hernandez, who partnered Russell Canderton at the back.

The first half was an end to end affair, with Ashford more than holding their own, despite the loss of Luke Hickie with a pulled hamstring, but neither side’s keeper was unduly troubled.  It soon went wrong in the second half though, when Hernandez gave away an unnecessary free kick, which the referee allowed to be taken some distance from the offence.  After one or two frantic efforts to clear the ball it ended up in the back of the net, and when Leighton scored a second eight minutes later, it was game over.  The third goal came deep in stoppage time and was the best of the night, an unstoppable effort beating Paul McCarthy.  To lose by a three goal margin was perhaps a little harsh but in all honesty once we went behind we never looked like retrieving the situation.

The current lack of form is depressing.  There is no lack of fight and in every game we show glimpses of how well we can play but overall there just seems to be a lack of belief, especially if we go behind.  That can possibly be put down to all sorts of factors, not all of them on the pitch, but if we cannot arrest the situation, the spectre of further relegation is looming.

On a brighter note, Christian Nanetti took the eye with his enthusiasm when he came on, whilst Jim Mann is now back and likely to play in this evening’s Capital League match at home to Burnham