Puritans boss left to reflect on loss

​It was only Biggleswade’s third win of the season and made it two defeats on the bounce for United having previously been on a seven-game unbeaten run.

And talking to Puritans Radio after the game, Hollyhead was left counting the cost of a combination of poor defending, having players out injured, and an overall poor display, although their cause wasn’t helped by the sending off of Alex Prosser six minutes into the second-half for two bookable offences.

He said: “Disappointment is the only word. In the first-half we weren’t winning enough first phase defensive situations, conceded a very soft goal from the corner – a situation we should have avoided in the first place by playing out rather than just clearing the ball.

"The second goal came just as I felt we were starting to stablise ourselves a little bit, but for me both goals were preventable.

"It was a slight disruption [having to make several changes to the team] but other teams have to deal with situations like that and I think we’ve done very well this year with injuries.

"It’s come at the same time as a couple of suspensions but it’s a situation we had to deal with and I think in the second-half we saw enough to suggest we still have enough quality in the squad to deal with things.

"The red card was one of those situations where Alex was already on a very harsh yellow, then the ball got away from him a bit and it all happened so quickly, which happened after a good start to the second-half for us, although the lads adapted well after that.”

The Puritans were back in action on Tuesday night when they hosted Alvechurch, after this week’s Guardian had gone to press. They’ll then make the trip to Lowestoft Town on Saturday, a side currently just outside the bottom four.