Leatherhead's luck is out (From Your Local Guardian)

Leatherhead's luck is out

1:07pm Thursday 8th December 2011 in Other Football By Nick Gentry

Richard Brady is desperate for some luck to come Leatherhead’s way so they can start climbing the Ryman Premier League table.

The Tanners were left to rue a number of missed chances on Saturday as an injury-time winner left them with nothing to show for an encouraging performance against high-flying AFC Hornchurch, who departed Fetcham Grove with all three points thanks to a 1-0 victory.

After an encouraging start under Brady, Leatherhead are now winless in their last four league matches but the manager, who saw Chris Boulter, Kev Terry and Gary Drewett join captain Mark Simmons on the treatment table this week, did take positives out of the performance as he plots to turn around the Tanners’ season at Kingstonian on Sunday.

“I was a lot more concerned about the Lewes performance the week before because they were really strong and we didn’t really create a lot at all,” he said.

“The best we could have looked for was a 0-0 whereas against Hornchurch we should have won the game.

“You can’t hide away from the fact that we’ve played some very good teams and Hornchurch’s manager was kind enough to say that we deserved to win the game but as much as that is an indicator, it is no good if we haven’t got any points.

“We’ve had two tough home games with two good performances, there are positives to take out of that.

“Sunday’s game and all of the games before Christmas are vital for us to turn the corner and that’s what it seems to be about at the moment.

“We can definitely move on to Sunday knowing that we just need something to turn for us and then we can push on from there.”

The Tanners had the better of the game against Hornchurch and had three golden opportunities to finish off their in-form visitors but failed to capitalise and were punished when Hornchurch’s Martin Tuohy’s 91st minute header found the back of the net.

The game left Brady having flashbacks of last week’s defeat to Lewes where they were once again denied by a late goal against one of the league’s stronger sides.

“It was deja vu in some aspects but it was a much better performance than last week,” he said.

“We had three very good opportunities to score and we didn’t take them and if you don’t do that against Hornchurch, who are flying in the league, then you are going to get punished.”