Badshot Lea 0, Molesey 2

THEY say home is where the heart is, but that doesn’t seem to particularly ring true for Badshot Lea just now.

Jekyll & Hyde Lea slipped to a fourth consecutive home defeat last Saturday when they were comfortably beaten 2-0 by Molesey – and after similar defeats on home soil by Ascot United, Balham and Cobham, you have to go back to October 5 for the Baggies’ last league win at Westfield Lane.

“We’ve now lost five out of eight at home, which is terrible,” said Lea co-manager Gavin Smith.

“We should be dictating games on our pitch and we’re not and it’s really frustrating. We can’t put our finger on it because it’s pretty much the same group of players.

“The pitch was immaculate on Saturday and teams are coming here, seeing it and wanting to play, and we’re not.”

First-half goals from Reis Stanislaus and Joshua Cover easily put the game out of Lea’s reach, despite Molesey playing the last 35 minutes with ten men after centre half Joe Pratley-Jones was given his marching orders when he crudely halted Nick Medcraft’s run at goal while last man.

Uncertainty reigned for the next few minutes as referee Andy Webster considered whether the offence occurred inside or outside the box before brandishing the red card after deciding the incident occurred just outside the area.

But despite upping their game after a somewhat lethargic first half, Lea couldn’t find a way through the massed Molesey ranks, with nippy winger Danilo Cadete arguably spurning the home side’s best chance when he snatched a shot horribly wide when well placed.

“If we could have got one back it would have made a difference because they would have got a bit nervous,” said Smith. “When you’ve got a two-goal lead you’ve got that bit of security, but we could have been out there all day and not scored.

“We’re not ones to scream and shout. Obviously we are really disappointed with the way things are going at the moment but the last few weeks we knew we were up against it and we’ve been trying to tell the players ‘it will come’, ‘just keep working hard’, and that was the disappointing thing on Saturday, I didn’t feel we worked hard in the first half.

“It took us to tell the players what to do to get to grips with what Molesey were doing which is the disappointing thing, we haven’t got anybody out there saying ‘this is what’s wrong, this is what you need to do’. You almost feel like you need a joystick to control them.”

And he added: “We don’t look like scoring and that’s the annoying thing. I sensed it in the dressing room after the game, there’s a lack of belief.”

The current situation, with a poor run of one win in five in the middle of an admittedly tough run of fixtures, is a far cry from the early stages of the season when Lea were banging in goals for fun and reached the second qualifying round of the FA Cup before bowing out to a Hayes & Yeading side who play two divisions higher.

“We’ve just had a bad run and I can go back to the FA Cup game against Hayes & Yeading,” said Smith. “I’m not blaming everything on that but there has been a difference and things have gone the wrong way since that game.”

Injuries to key players and loanees being recalled by parent clubs have added to Lea’s woes, but with experienced talisman Nic Ciardini fit again and midfielder Stacey Thripp expected back this week there may be some light at the end of the tunnel as Knaphill loom large on Saturday.

Not to mention a promising outing for former Camberley Town youngster Joe Pilling who wasn’t overawed by the occasion when he came on at half-time in place of the returning Zac Hawker.

“I know the lads are good enough to compete with the top teams in this league,” said Smith.

“We have to get back to enjoying it and get a settled squad again. One result can make a massive difference. We thought we had that at Abbey Rangers, we thought that would be a turning point and that we would go on a little run, but it hasn’t happened.

“But we were always aware when we got the fixtures that this month was tough. There were a lot of games and to play a lot of games with a depleted squad is really difficult.”