Horsham FC ‘thoroughly deserved to lose’ at AFC Totton – but boss takes positives from Hornchurch defeat

​Horsham suffered back-to-back National League South defeats this week, going down 3-0 at Totton on Saturday before losing 2-0 to the Urchins three days later.

Dec Rose, Malachi Linton and Jaiden Bartolo struck in the second half as the Stags completed a league double over the Hornets.

Di Paola said: “Some of it’s on me. I think I picked completely the wrong team. We didn’t get them in the right frame of mind for the game.

“It’s quite hard at the moment. Because we’ve got quite a lot of players injured, we’re trying to lift the players to ‘cup final’ levels of performance.

“We are a really average team in this league and the players are giving a lot over a long period. That’s probably the only time this season where they’ve not been unable to do it.

“We were really poor Saturday and thoroughly deserved to lose. We got battered – and that’s unlike us.

“But I have to take ownership of it. I don’t think I got the boys up for the game, I don’t think I got them in the right frame of mind, and I don’t think they came ready to battle.

“It sounds arrogant, but I’ve never had a team that just turns up now and again. That’s what it must be like for one of those teams in the bottom four. Every now and again you just don’t turn up. We haven’t experienced that very often so we need to draw a line under that one.”

Hornchurch then ruthlessly punished individual Horsham errors in midweek.

Kai Innocent was caught in possession in the build-up to Henry Sandat’s fifth-minute opener before a poor second half clearance from goalkeeper Lewis Carey was picked off by Dominic Poleon, who saw his deflected effort loop into the net.

Di Paola added: “We played well, we just came up against the team that’s second in the league and that’s clinical.

“We gave them three chances and they scored two of them. We had a lot of the ball and got in good areas but we were a bit powder puff.

“In general, I can’t really fault the boys. I thought we played well, we just didn’t score. It’s been a common theme since Christmas. When the goals dry up it’s really hard sometimes, and when you make silly mistakes it becomes even harder.

“I couldn’t have asked for much more from them. It was a bit of a thrown-together team, but it was a far more connected group than we had on Saturday.

“There were some good signs. I thought we had some good attacking entries but there wasn’t enough quality in the final third.

“It wasn’t too bad – but Saturday was hard to live with. On Tuesday we did okay. There were lots of positives in my head.

“Performance is always key. If you perform well, eventually you’ll get results. If we played like that for five games I think we’d win a couple of them – and that’s all that matters.

The Hornets, now 14th in the table, host 17th-placed Tonbridge Angels this Saturday and relegation-threatened Bath City on Tuesday – you can read our preview to these games tomorrow online at sussexworld.co.uk/sport.

Meanwhile, Horsham Women advanced to the SCWGFL Challenge Cup final with a 4-0 home win over Pagham on Sunday.

Isabel King and Bo Barker fired the hosts into a 2-0 half-time lead before Jasmin Johnston-Jones and Jordan Lucas made sure of the Hornettes’ progress in the second half.

Horsham will meet Three Bridges in the final, at Lancing’s Culver Road on Sunday, May 17, after they thumped Broadbridge Heath 6-0 in Sunday’s other semi.