Leon Mettam rues Frickley Athletic’s continuing inability to take their chances

Frickley Athletic were once again made to pay for missing chances as they lost to Dunston.

Assistant manager Leon Mettam was left bemoaning the Blues’ inability to take their chances after they suffered a 2-1 defeat to opponents pushing for a play-offs place.

Once again Frickley matched a team much higher up the table, but their problems of putting the ball of the back of the net left them with nothing to show for their efforts.

“Defenders defending for their lives, strikers that couldn’t finish their dinner – it’s been the same all season,” said Mettam.

“Eighteen goals all season tells its own story, but it’s not like we don’t have the chances.

“No-one means to miss and I’ve been a culprit missing chances many a time, but you’ve got to at least take some.

“We create and create, work on things in training that gets us in and it comes to that final bit and it’s like zip, zip, zip, we just can’t put it in the net.

“Things fall to our strikers, people that you want them to fall to, but we never seem to get a clean contact on anything. I don’t think we’ve hit a rocket all season that’s gone in the top corner.

“I work on it religiously with the strikers, just trying to improve them. It’s not about lashing the ball into the back of the net, it’s about finding a corner, getting enough on it to direct it goalwards.”

Mettam believes the defenders are doing their bit to try and get Frickley up the table from their current third from bottom position.

“I feel sorry for them (defenders) because they defend with their lives week in, week out, bodies on the line, blocks, stopping crosses.

“Jordan (Pierrepont) made a great save to keep us in the game, but then they score their goal and it’s a ball across the box, we get a toe in and it hits their shin and goes in – we haven’t had one of them. But you make your own luck in football.

“All season we’ve looked steadfast and I think we’ve got one of the best goals against records in the league.”

Frickley have nine of the bottom 11 teams in the division still to play so safety from relegation is very much in their own hands.

The first of those games comes this Saturday when they travel to play bottom of the table Pickering Town.