DARREN Byfield has warned his Redditch United side to keep their feet on the ground and continue to work hard after watching his team make an excellent start to the Southern League Premier Division campaign.
The Reds enjoyed a 3-1 victory over Chesham United in their opening ‘home’ game of the season at Stratford Town on Saturday before returning to the DCS Stadium to record a convincing 4-2 victory over Carl Adams’ Town side on Tuesday.
The Reds opened 2-0 leads in both matches – including racing into a two-goal advantage inside six minutes in midweek – before being pegged back, but showed admirable resilience to stave off the opposition in both encounters.
Byfield, whose side face two testing fixtures over the next week with a trip to Weymouth on Saturday followed by Tuesday’s ‘home’ match against Kettering Town at Bedworth United, said: “We came flying out of the blocks in both games and really took the game to the opposition, but then our intensity levels dropped and we allowed both Chesham and Stratford to come back into the contests.
“However, we then showed admirable character to dig in and make sure we secured wins. The team spirit was clearly in evidence and the players are playing for each other, which delights me.”
Byfield, who will be forced to do without giant centre back Clayton McDonald for three matches starting this weekend following his red card against Chesham, sees plenty of positives from his side but knows there is still much to work on.
“In training we will be working on some of the things which were less pleasing in the opening two games. There is lots of room for improvement, but there was always going to be, especially at this stage of the season,” added Byfield.
“We’ve got six points from two matches, which is great, but it’s only a start. We’ve got a tough game now against a much-fancied Weymouth side who will be looking to bounce back after losing 4-1 at home in midweek and we need to go there and impose our game on them.
“It’ll be tough and being without Clayton (McDonald) is a setback, but we’ll have our plans and I want the boys to just go out there and enjoy it.”
Javia Roberts, Clinton Morrison and Jazz Luckie were the Reds’ scorers on Saturday and Danico Johnson, Reece Hewitt, Roberts and Liam Spink were on the mark against Stratford.
Visit www.redditchstandard.co.uk/sport to read match reports of both games.
