Beards demands defence shape up (From Your Local Guardian)

Beards demands defence shape up

9:59am Tuesday 31st August 2010 in

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Mark Beard admits he fears for Tooting & Mitcham’s fortunes unless they can plug a leaky defence that has shipped 11 goals in their first four league games.

A 3-2 win at Cray Wanderers on Friday night was followed by a 3-0 defeat at home to Sutton United on Monday as the Terrors made it two wins and two losses from their opening four encounters.

And the new Tooting boss has targeted remedying the defence as his number one priority.

Beard said: “At any level of football conceding that amount of goals is just not good enough.

“We cannot go out onto the pitch every game having to score four goals to have a chance of winning.

“At this moment in time I would happily take a scrappy 1-0 win just to show we can defend.

“I am not happy about it and I have made that clear to the players.

“It is not just the defence either - whether it is a case of not working hard enough from the front or being sloppy in midfield, it is an issue for the whole team.”

Rob Haworth, James Nicholls and Barry Stevens scored at Cray Wanderers before the Sutton slump.

And Beard is also looking for a change in character as his side look to develop.

He added: “At the moment I would say we are too nice a team, and we need a few nastier players in there.

“Yes we can play football but we need to mix it up a bit and not allow teams to bully us.

“I have brought in Pat O’Connor on loan from Millwall and he is exactly the type of no-nonsense defender we are looking for.

“I would stress though we are only two weeks into the season and we are on a massive learning curve so we need to stay patient, but I will only be patient for so long.”

Tooting & Mitcham’s next three matches: Sep 4 Canvey Island (a), 7 Croydon Athletic (h), 11 Walton Casuals (FAC, h)