Pure Swansea manager Jack Midwinter says his side must learn to manage the key moments in games, after conceding nine goals in their last two matches.
Pure lost 4-2 at Ynyshir Albion last weekend, their first defeat of the season, after a 5-5 draw at Afan Lido in their previous game.
The defeat knocked them off the top of the Novira Cymru South. Cardiff Draconians are the visitors on Saturday.
Midwinter said: “I think the learning curve is probably how to manage moments in the game, so when we’re on top how can we put the ball in the back of the net and when we’re not on top how do we stop going in ours.”
Where the goals came from, and the fix this week
Two of Ynyshir’s goals came from counter-attacks, one from a penalty and one from a set play. Midwinter said all four came from areas of the pitch where Pure “could be better”.
He said: “We can definitely work on stopping that happening again and that’s what we’ll do this week.”
He says it is not only down to the defenders. He said: “It’s not just from the five lads at the back, it’s all the players on the pitch.”
He added: “If we do better in the first half of the pitch we don’t get counter-attacked, if we press balls, we don’t get turned over, it’s just a couple of things and sometimes they fall your way.”
He is still backing his attack to win games. He said: “We have a fantastic front line, we just got to make sure we keep the ball out of our net.”
‘I won’t get too low on the lows’
Midwinter is not panicking after a first defeat. He said: “I didn’t get too high in the highs and I won’t get too low on the lows.”
He said the back line knows how to defend. “There’s a reason why the back line kept four or five clean sheets this season and we’re just going to make sure that they remember those things,” he said.
Injuries and changes at the back
Midwinter says the changes forced on his defence are part of the problem. He said: “A little bit of the problem is we have changed things.”
He added: “We lost both our full backs in games and had to change, but they’re coming back to fitness.”
Zac Brown missed a game before returning, and Tom Johnston came into the squad when Ollie Roberts dropped out, which Midwinter said meant “a lot of rotation”.
Pure have also been dealing with what he called “a cut, two lads with broken hands, a couple of niggly injuries”. The two weeks off after the Treowen Stars game was postponed helped get those players closer to a return.
Roberts and Morgan Wright are back this weekend, and Bradley Gibbings is in the team. Midwinter said: “We’ve got three or four players returning so the squad depth is bigger and means that when we do need to make changes we can.”
At Ynyshir, he would have liked to rest Johnston late on. “Ideally we would have maybe saved his legs in the last 10 or 15 minutes but we didn’t have the squad depth to do that,” he said.
‘A tough place to go’
Midwinter said Ynyshir were “very energetic, very organised, very committed”, and the game was “super competitive” for 55 to 60 minutes, until the hosts got their third goal.
He said: “It was a heavy pitch, it’s a small, compacted pitch, there was a big crowd there which made the atmosphere a little bit hostile to the boys.”
Pure have two games in hand on Caerau Ely and Pontypridd United, and Midwinter says the pressure is on former Welsh Premier sides, not a newly promoted team.
He said: “There’s no pressure on us, we’re all a couple of mates, we all play for the fun of it with a smile on our face.”
Cardiff Draconians, and free entry for Swans season ticket holders
Draconians beat Afan Lido 2-0 last weekend. Midwinter said: “I think they’ll be hoping we’ll come into the game with our heads down and our tails between our legs.”
He added: “We want to get back to winning ways, we’re at home on our pitch, the surface will be great, and we’ll look to play and hopefully win the game.”
Swansea City season ticket holders and NHS staff still get in free until the new year. With the Swans away at Birmingham City, Midwinter called it “a great chance for locals to come and get their football fix”.
Pure Swansea host Cardiff Draconians at Swansea Bay Sports Park on Saturday 7 November (2pm kick-off).
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