Chris Agutter on the Sussex Senior Cup final

SussexWorld

Hastings United boss Chris Agutter's verdict on the Sussex Senior Cup final defeat to Horsham at the Amex Stadium

Transcript

00:00 Chris, commiserations on the result, not the result you wanted and probably not the performance you wanted.

00:06 How do you assess what you've seen tonight?

00:09 I've got to give Borsham a lot of credit I think. If I'm being honest, at times it was men against boys.

00:16 I think their experience and their quality showed.

00:21 We started the game well actually. The first 10-15 minutes we felt if we could get a foothold in the game

00:31 and certainly not give them the initiative like we have in the two previous games we've played,

00:35 we felt that would be a good platform to build from.

00:38 I thought as I said the last 10 minutes we were decent.

00:41 Had a majority of the ball, posed a couple of decent questions for them,

00:48 got in some really good attacking positions but they then had one chance to score.

00:55 I just think the difference in quality, our lack of quality in the final third versus their quality in the final third

01:04 was a big factor in the outcome of the game.

01:09 Again, I can't take too much away from Borsham. I thought they were well worth the win.

01:13 We've got not too much to complain about to be honest.

01:17 Is it something, although it's early days to say this, is it something you can learn from?

01:22 That's a very young team you had out there. Will they take a lot away from this when they think about it in the days and weeks to come?

01:29 They need to. The thing is, is Horsham set up in a similar way to what they did in the first game?

01:36 Off the back of that, we then do a lot of work on the training pitch.

01:41 When teams set up in a similar way, we were able to apply some of the learning from the original game against Horsham.

01:49 We've worked on it and applied it to similar games and we've had success against teams that do that.

01:55 But one of the things with a young group is often the only thing that's consistent is inconsistency.

02:01 What we saw tonight was similar issues that we had in the first game.

02:06 As I said, we've worked on it and thought we'd amend it.

02:11 Tonight they come back to haunt us a little bit.

02:14 Like I said, I think so much of football comes down to both boxes.

02:19 I thought in both boxes, they were miles better than us.

02:21 That's what I mean, like men against boys, you can see the experience and the difference in quality.

02:31 Do you think maybe why your players just couldn't score?

02:37 Obviously, you've got a young squad out there.

02:40 Maybe because the occasion got to them, like playing at the Premier League ground on a big pitch.

02:45 Do you think maybe that's why you couldn't score?

02:47 No, I don't think it was that.

02:52 I think any sort of statements of saying that our guys and a lack of experience has meant that we're over-ruled by the occasion,

03:01 I think that takes away from Horsham.

03:03 I think ultimately Horsham were just better than us.

03:05 When Horsham had chances, they took them.

03:08 The key moments in the game, as I said, we had one in the first ten minutes or so where the ball's come across

03:13 and our right winger, rather than take his touch inside the pitch, takes it to goal.

03:18 Then we potentially go one-nil up.

03:22 He takes a touch wide and ends up near the corner flag, whereas for their second goal, very similar situation.

03:28 Their lad takes a touch towards goal, then the ball goes over the full-back.

03:33 Just a little bit of difference in quality, to be honest.

03:36 I wouldn't want to say it was anything to do with the occasion.

03:40 I think just credit to Horsham.

03:41 Is that what you said to the boys in the dressing room then?

03:44 No, we just praised them really because ultimately it would be easy to sit there and start having a bit of a pop and grilling people.

03:52 But now's not the time or the place.

03:54 When we took over in the end of October, we were near the bottom of the league.

04:00 We had 12 senior players and the brief was to keep us up.

04:05 Then over the past six months, we've managed to get within touching distance of the play-offs and the Cup Final.

04:14 The first Cup Final the club's been at for the last 20-plus years.

04:19 For me, I'm just really proud of the players.

04:22 Ultimately, they need to take this experience and use it as fuel to new forms.

04:26 We've got to make sure that it's not another 20 years before the club's at a Cup Final again.

04:31 Thank you.

04:33 Is it?

04:34 David Lloris broke the club's scoring record this season.

04:39 Why do you think he struggled to see it in the football?

04:42 Service probably wasn't the best.

04:45 When teams bank up like that, it's a bit of a mid-to-low block.

04:50 You need to do a lot of work leading up to that to create enough space and get into positions to give Dad the service.

04:57 Dad was probably a victim of their forward line and their front two.

05:02 We didn't do enough to disrupt that.

05:04 We played forwards too fast, too early and ended up playing into traps rather than doing more to disrupt their first line,

05:15 which then opens up space in between for us to play through.

05:17 Then we can get the ball into Dad from there.

05:20 I don't think, to be honest, it was anything that Dav did or didn't do.

05:25 I think it was more a lack of service and no major complaints as far as Dav's concerned, to be honest.

05:33 What are your targets for next season?

05:35 How can you use this result to provide extra motivation next season to push forwards on?

05:40 Like I said, the emotion and the disappointment from this evening, the same as myself as a manager.

05:48 Seeing Dom picking up the winner's medal, that makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable.

05:55 Same as the players, really.

05:57 We've all got to use it as fuel to move forwards and make sure it doesn't happen again.

06:02 In terms of building on it, as I said, with a young group, they'll be better for the experience.

06:09 They will be better.

06:12 It's just a case of trying to learn from it and move forwards, as basic as that sounds.

06:16 It's also really important that you highlight all the positive stuff.

06:20 We've got to keep doing that and we've got to build on that.

06:24 A lot of the negatives that we saw tonight, we've got to try and find a way to fill those gaps and move forwards.

06:33 My big message is we've done an awful lot well this year.

06:37 We're very close to being a side that can compete at the top end of Step 3.

06:45 We're not a million miles away, so it's just a case of building on the positives.

06:49 Obviously, the early goal must have been quite challenging to recover from.

06:53 Was there any tactical changes that you felt needed to be made as early as that was?

06:57 Yes, so we changed the position of our wingers.

07:05 Rather than our wingers staying high and pinning their full backs,

07:14 which then potentially gives us space to play around and in front,

07:17 we just felt that where they'd just made a bit of a block,

07:22 and where their two sides of their midfield four were man-marking,

07:26 because we have three 10s, so where they were narrowed off man-marking,

07:29 it actually gave us space to play around.

07:31 So what we tried to do at half-time was play our wide players a little bit deeper

07:35 to try and pull the full back out to then get one of the three 10s spinning in behind.

07:40 So that was a big thing, really.

07:43 But again, I'm conscious of not taking too much away from Horsham,

07:48 but I do feel like in terms of them stopping us from having success,

07:58 I think it's more about us doing plan A better.

08:03 So I think really basically the amount of loose passes,

08:06 the amount of times that we could have moved it off one and two,

08:08 touched it and took three or four, so you allow them to get into position and bank up.

08:12 I think if we were better in our execution of plan A,

08:17 Horsham wouldn't have had as much success.

08:21 But then, as I said, to be honest, I think we could have probably been there all night

08:25 and we would have scored because it just sent that feeling.

08:27 Again, going back to what I first said, that's credit to Horsham in terms of their personnel.

08:32 It just felt a little bit like men against boys.

08:34 But again, that's something that we need to take, learn from the disappointment,

08:41 and use it as fuel to move forwards.

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