WAYNE OLIVER has urged Droitwich Spa to play much better if they wish to be taken as serious contenders for the Midland League Division Two title.
After bowing out of the Les James Challenge Cup on Saturday with a 2-1 defeat at Bloxwich Town, Spa maintained their unbeaten start to the new league season with a 3-2 victory over local rivals Fairfield Villa on Bank Holiday Monday.
Despite being 2-0 down at half-time thanks to goals from Joe Brookes and Ellis Blakemore, a total turnaround in fortunes in the second half saw Nick Seabourne and James Lemon pull the Saltmen level before Fairfield old boy James Ward smashed home the winner in the second minute of injury time.
But for joint-boss Oliver, he feels there’s still more to come from his players and has urged them to stop making silly mistakes.
“If we want to be taken as serious title contenders we have got to improve our overall general play,” he said.
“We have got a few key players missing at the moment but we need to start stepping up to the plate.
“At 2-0 down we told the players it was down to them to turn things around as we cannot give them anymore tools than they already have to perform.
“We can’t keep saying the ability in our dressing room is better than the ability in the opposition’s – they have to prove that and they did exactly that but we need to be more clinical.”
Droitwich will look to extend their unbeaten league run to four games on Saturday when they welcome Earlswood Town to the King George Playing Fields.
The previous meeting between the two sides at the KGPF saw the Saltmen cruise to a comfortable 9-1 victory thanks to a double hat-trick from Lemon and goals from Max Crisp, Bradley Burgess and Seabourne.
Ahead of the clash, Oliver will be without Mike Seeley and Graham Pardoe who are sidelined for several weeks with ankle injuries while James Halsall is a doubt after picking up a knock in the 3-2 win over Fairfield.
Oliver added: “We want a Feckeham first-half performance and Fairfield second-half performance on Saturday.
“At the moment we are looking like we will concede two or three goals a game and scoring four or five.
“In our last two games we’ve performed well but silly mistakes are making things look worse than they actually are.
“You won’t get away with those mistakes every week so we need to turn up fit and ready and put some consistency into our play.”
