Battling Boston fall to sucker punch

08:00 - 12 January 2009

Steve Welsh is confident his under pressure Boston United side can turn their season around after they slumped to a 1-0 defeat against FC United of Manchester at York Street on Saturday.

In the only game played in the UniBond League Premier Division at the weekend, the Pilgrims were outdone by a late goal to leave them teetering just a point off the drop zone in 17th place.

Welsh's team fell victim to a Kyle Wilson strike on 85 mintes after Ryan Clarke needlessly gifted the ball to the league's top scorer who sealed the win for Manchester.

Not even new Lincoln City loanee Gary King could save the Pilgrims from another defeat despite the striker having a third-minute effort ruled out for a foul on Manchester goalkeeper Sam Ashton by Pilgrims striker Jon Froggatt.

"I thought we played a lot better than we have recently" insisted Welsh.

"It doesn't take a genius to see that we need to take our chances.

"If we had done that we would have been out of sight.

"The trouble is when you miss those chances they can come back to haunt you and they did on Saturday when they scored late on. They hit us with a real sucker punch.

"At the very least it should have been a draw."

Welsh believes that the Pilgrims have walked a fine line between success and failure in recent weeks.

And the former Lincoln City defender does not believe his team is being outclassed.

"It's not that we're being cut apart, apart from the game against Nantwich the other week when we lost 5-0" said Welsh.

"If you look back at the games we have lost this season and analyse them you will see that there is a small margin by which we have been beaten at times.

"We never looked like being under any threat at the weekend and I felt we posed the bigger threat.

"We had our goal disallowed after three minutes, but these things happen.