Magpies showed resilience but lacked a cutting edge in stalemate with Chesham

Maidenhead United’s on loan defender David Mantle in action on Saturday. Photo: MUFC

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In the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Chesham United, interim boss Ryan Peters said it felt like two points dropped for the Magpies, however, he also acknowledged the resilience and character his side showed to get back into the game.

This wasn’t one of the Magpies’ better performances, with Peters accepting the visitors had been short of the high levels they’ve set for themselves in recent weeks.

 However, they were somewhat unfortunate to fall behind in the latter stages of the first half, when a wayward strike from Samson Esan was instinctively turned home by Mitchell Weiss, wrong-footing keeper Jordi Van Stappershoef in the process.

 To that point, Maidenhead had been almost non-existent as an attacking force, with Chesham creating the only moments of note in a cagey contest.

 But they improved by several notches after the interval, with Peters once again not waiting long to make a series of substitutions which ultimately impacted the game.

 Josh Umerah came on in attack for Sam Barratt and Jordon Ragguette replaced Owen Cochrane on the left side of the visitors’ defence.

They still struggled to get their high tempo attacking football going but did manage to grab an equaliser with the move of the match in the 74th minute.

Matt Robinson, Asher Yearwood, Umerah and Josh Popoola were all involved in teeing up Dulson for a smashing finish from the edge of the area.

“It feels at the moment like two points dropped,” said Peters. “But let’s not forget that for a large spell in that game we were also 1-0 down. So, to get back into it shows resilience.

“But that second half display, I feel like we should have done more to put their goalkeeper under more pressure. We played side to side maybe a little bit too often, rather than being braver. And because of that their goalkeeper was relatively comfortable.

“When we are good, as we were in the second half against Enfield, we will try to shoot as often as we can do when we get those chances, but we didn’t do that today unfortunately so it’s frustrating.

“I think the boy (Weiss) is offside. Nevertheless, I feel we had to defend that moment better and I don’t think we did. I feel like it was their real chance on our goal and it ended up being a goal, so it’s clinical from them. But in terms of our play and our first half attacks, they were non-existent. Off the back of the Enfield game, I was expecting us to be free flowing, but we weren’t.”

Following Dulson’s leveller, Peters hoped and expected the Magpies to maintain their momentum and push on for another hard-earned three points - but that grandstand finish never materialised, despite Chesham being reduced to 10 men in the closing stages when  their captain Callum Adebiyi was sent off following a clash with Dulson close to the corner flag.

“It was a really heavy pitch,” explained Peters. “Asher (Yearwood) is one of the fittest players in the league and he’s coming down with cramps, so you know it’s a heavy pitch when that happens.

“That being said, both teams played on that pitch and in the first half one team did much better on it.

“Our goal was very good. It’s not necessarily the goal, but the will to want to attack like that as much as possible. We didn’t see that in the first half very much at all but in the second half we tried to create more chances on goal. It didn’t really happen for us today, but the goal is exactly what we’re looking for.

“One of our biggest frustrations is that when they went down to 10 men there should have been limited opportunities for them to attack us from that point. Maybe a little bit naively from all the players, we wanted to get that second goal so badly that we became a little bit too open and allowed them some counter attacks.

“From our standpoint, fine we want to score again, but let’s not lose the game.

“We had some attacks though and needed to deliver better quality, but we didn’t do that today.”

Having seen their home game with AFC Totton called off on Tuesday because of a waterlogged pitch, the Magpies will now return to action at Ebbsfleet United on Saturday - a battle between two of last season’s demoted teams with both now pushing for a play-off finish.