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00:00Gavin, defeat on penalties in the Aldershot Senior Cup Final against Westfield, obviously a bit of a heartbreaking way to lose there, a close game?
00:09Yeah, I thought the game was poor to be honest. Listen, they don't want to lose a Cup Final but I'm more disappointed with the performance we put in if I'm honest, because the lads have let themselves down really.
00:21I was hoping they could show what they're about, show what we're about and it didn't happen. Players couldn't pass five yards on an unbelievable pitch, Groundsman's right there.
00:31Unbelievable pitch where you look at them and go, this is what they want, this is what they moan about, they moan about our pitch or pitches we go to and they let themselves down and I don't think it's a case that they got nervous.
00:44I think some of them got a little bit overconfident, tried stupid passes that we tell them not to do. Yeah, that's my disappointment, you don't want to lose a Cup Final but I've been looking at the performance more than that if I'm honest.
00:58Obviously you analysed briefly in the changing room after, could you put your finger on that at all?
01:05Lack of quality, I thought we were slightly better than them second half. Without being good, they looked at us on the break and going forward was our downfall really.
01:18We got in some good areas and didn't take advantage of them, picked the wrong pass. Yeah, just lack of quality in the final third.
01:27I think we had three cleared off the line in that last minute and could have won it and then go to penalties and again we showed, this penalty shootout was difficult for people stepping up there and taking them but we showed a little bit of lack of quality again in our penalties.
01:40Yeah, that sort of scramble in the box there and stoppage time, that could have gone anywhere couldn't it?
01:45Yeah, I was waiting for it to go in the back of the net and then I think about three or four attempts and just kept getting sank on it or we didn't hit it cleanly.
01:52Could have been different but somebody didn't deserve to win the game. I don't think they did either so penalties was probably a reflection of what happened and they won the lottery of penalties.
02:04I guess you'll always give credit to people for stepping up in a shootout, always takes a bit of bottle and I guess it didn't quite go the way there.
02:14No, I mean Lamin stepped up every time, to be fair to him, he always wants the fifth one and he's scored them in the past and he's missed today, Nick's obviously missed the first one but there weren't too many offers of people to take penalties if I'm honest.
02:27We took off obviously, Anwar came off with a 2-1, Kareem came off with a 2-1, Josh with a 2-1, Babs probably with a 2-1 so for them to step up and take them is a good thing.
02:39So you went 1-0 up during the game through, Josh's penalty obviously, we put that away nicely.
02:45Yeah, Josh's a good penalty taker but we could have risked him being out on the pitch, he'd already been booked, he probably made a foul where he could have got booked again, the refs gave him a warning so it was the right thing to take him off, you don't want to be down to 10 on a big pitch like that.
02:59And he equalised straight away from the corner.
03:03Yeah, I'm disappointed and the lads are moaning about it, about what happened and they seem to think there was a foul on Harry, I couldn't really see it to be honest but it was a terrible corner in and no-one dealt with it, no-one was strong enough, we looked a little bit weak.
03:16Didn't see Harry saying he was fouled but for me, that's weak defending. We can look at it back on the VAB, that made no difference, it wasn't given so we didn't deserve to go in front so it was a bit of a stalemate really.
03:33You said obviously lacking a bit of quality in the final third but George, very solid at the back there.
03:39Yeah, George and Klau have done well the whole season to be fair to them and they've always stepped up, they're 7 out of 10s every week, 8 out of 10s, very rarely give us a bad game so he deserves that today. He's done well in the awards and he's really pushed on as a player so good on him.
03:56Just reflections now, end of the season, solid first season after promotion, established yourself in the league.
04:02Yeah, we're a little bit disappointed with where we finished. I felt maybe if we hadn't had those run of games where we had them 7 in 12 days which was ridiculous, could we have picked up a few more points? Probably we would have if we were playing week by week or Saturday to Tuesday.
04:18I think a fair reflection probably would have been 9th if I'm honest. We were hoping for 9th. I think we competed with every team above us if I'm honest and we finished where we finished at the end of it but we can look for excuses.
04:35I do think them games we probably would have got some more points but it didn't happen. That would have made us probably finish 10th one place above Hartley. It's a good, when we were, obviously from the start of pre-season where we lost a lot of players, had to get a lot of players in, didn't really know what we were about, probably 4 weeks behind everyone else in terms of getting a squad together.
04:57To implement what we want, we've played some good football, we've competed with every team in the league. I didn't think there was anyone that was really head and shoulders above us when we played them so that's a positive. We just need to take it on now, make some improvements and look to better that next year and try and close the gap in points wise between us and where we finish this year and the players.
05:20A bit of a break now but I guess it doesn't really stop for you, busy summer, preparing and getting ready?
05:25Yeah, there'll be plenty of time to have a break and catch up with all the players soon. I'm hoping we will keep the majority of the players. I'm sure they're going to get offers from other teams but that happens every year but I'd like to keep a good core of players. We haven't managed to do that yet for the last 2 or 3 years. It's always a constant change but we're a small club, people come in and offer people money and I don't blame them for leaving.
05:54Yeah, but obviously you know what you can offer and other aspects can't you?
05:58Yeah, we've got to look at opportunity for young players to play football. It's not about the money, do you want to come for the right reasons? Hopefully they do. Hopefully we can keep these boys and it'll be a good platform to build from next year. We all have a good pre-season, we haven't had that. We have good games but we're always looking at players.