We spoke with Chichester City manager Liam Greenfield, after his side’s Premier League South West Division 1 title hopes were boosted by becoming the first team to defeat leaders Larkhall Athletic.
SK: With the title race looking a very exciting one, how much of a boost was it to end the leaders’ unbeaten start?
CH: It was important for us to go into the Xmas break on a high and it puts us in an exciting position for the start of the new year. The result was equally important as we haven’t played a league fixture for some time due to cup commitments. Inflicting Larkhall’s first league defeat of the season has opened the league up with several teams having games in hand on the top two, I think it’s going to be one of the most exciting run-ins for a long time.
SK: Your defence is of of the tightest but do you feel you need more goals, as this cost you against Southampton Saints?
CH: When you keep a clean sheet you only need one goal to take all the points. Obviously scoring more goals would be nice but I’d rather be talking about how we can score more rather than how we stop conceding. The Southampton result was a frustrating one as we did everything right apart from find the net and Southampton are a good team that will punish others in the league, they were the first team to take any points from Larkhall.
SK: Could you have asked for much more leading up to Christmas, than three very decent wins?
CH: The FA Cup game against Keynsham was fantastic, to bounce back from a disappointing defeat against Brighton in our previous game and to score six against a good Keynsham side was a signal to me that the players knew they had to step up. Very similar to the game against Larkhall, the players told me after the game that they had spoken about how everyone needed to step up to end Larkhall’s run. As a manager, that’s very pleasing as it shows that after that disappointment the players are grouping together as a team and taking a collective responsibility for their performances.
SK: Will the FA Cup clash with Southern Division QPR be a good test of where you’re at?
CH: It definitely will, we played Brighton and got taught a bit of a lesson about where we are at, so to test ourselves against another Premier league team so soon is great. We’ll have learnt the lessons from that game and put in a much improved performance come the 10th of January.
SK: Which opposing teams and players have stood out for you so far?
CH: The two best games of football for me this season have been against Swindon and Larkhall. In both games it was evident that both teams were really going out for a win and both were played in a fantastic combative spirit. There are a lot of very good players in the league this season, which is one of the reasons I think it is so exciting. Aside from players in our team I think that [Ellie] Maynard up front for Swindon is a good player, very strong and holds the ball up well, both [Rachel] Cullen and [Justine] Lorton-Radburn for Keynsham caused us problems in both games with their movement off the ball and good use of the ball when they had it too.
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