Home wobbles are a puzzle for Horsham FC boss after AFC Totton defeat
Dominic Di Paola reflected on Horsham FC’s defeat to AFC Totton – and said he could not put his finger on why they have struggled to win at home in the league this season.
The Hornets saw their five-match unbeaten run in National League South come to an end at home to the Stags, Saturday’s game finishing 3-2 to the visitors.
Horsham have won just twice at home in the league in 2026-27, recording eight points in as many games.
That is in stark contrast to the Hornets’ away form. They have taken 14 points from eight games and have yet to be beaten on the road.
And their home performances in the league have confounded Di Paola.
He told us: “It’s annoying. There’s been a few at home where you’re scratching your head as to why you’ve not got anything out of them.
“Maidstone we should have got more out of, Farnham we should have got more out of, Totton we should have got more out of. There’s been lots of opportunities for us to do better at home – and we have to do better at home.
“It’s hard to put your finger on why because we’re quite dominant in these games. I hate stats but we had 60 per cent possession on Saturday, double the amount of shots, double everything really – but it doesn’t mean anything.
“At home there seems to be a common thread where we dominate games but don’t capitalise – yet when we go away we’re perhaps not as dominant but we pick up points.
“Maybe we need to have a reset in how we approach home games because it’s clearly not working.
“But if you look at every metric apart from points and wins, we’re doing really well so there’s something fundamentally wrong.”
Totton led twice in the first half only for the Hornets to strike back both times through Charlie Hester-Cook and Ryan Bartley.
Josh Sims hit what proved to be the Stags’ winner on 72 minutes to bring Horsham’s unbeaten streak to an end.
Defeat to Totton saw the Hornets drop two places to 12th.
Di Paola added: “They had three shots on target and scored all three. We just don’t capitalise when we’re on top. We don’t seem to be able to pull away from teams.
“We got back to 1-1 and then we gave away a really poor goal from a corner. We got it back to 2-2 and we’re on the march, but they’ve gone down the other end and scored and it’s almost game over.
“We were chasing it but they were able to park the bus and they just sat in and made it really hard for us to score – like we’ve done to teams.
“On Saturday – and you sound like an idiot – we did okay but we’ve given away a couple of sloppy goals. And I think you can give away sloppy goals due to the nature of the opposition.
“It was really frustrating off the back of a good spell of results. But that is going to happen. We’ve got to understand that this league is not easy. We’ve just got to reset and pick up a few wins.”
Horsham entertain National League South rivals Torquay United in the second round of the FA Trophy this Saturday.
You can get Di Paola’s thoughts on the tie tomorrow at sussexworld.co.uk/sport.