Diamonds must ‘tighten up’ as lead is squandered in loss at Hitchin

For the second game in a row, Diamonds took the lead but ended up on the wrong side of the result as they went down 2-1 at Hitchin Town.

Fraser Corden’s first senior goal for the club gave Diamonds the lead eight minutes before half-time but former Hayden Road man Jack Snelus levelled for the hosts just two minutes later.

And Snelus struck again eight minutes from full-time to condemn Diamonds to their 12th defeat of the season and leave them still entrenched in the bottom two of the Southern League Premier Central.

The loss came just 48 hours after a 3-1 home defeat to Stourbridge in which Maxwell’s team also took the lead.

And while the manager was pleased with his team’s performance last night, he knows they need to start taking advantage of winning positions.

“I was really pleased with the performance,” Maxwell said reflecting on the loss at Hitchin.

“We created quite a lot of opportunities and some really good ones too where, with no kind of exaggeration, we could have easily gone in 2-0 or 3-0 up.

“We were the better team and they were struggling against us. But we have gone into half-time at 1-1.

“The pleasing thing is that if you are creating the amount of chances we did and the performances are good then eventually, it will bring results.

“If you have games where you aren’t creating chances and not playing well then there’s no hope.

“It’s really pleasing that we have been able to get in front in games.

“The boys are believing in it and really putting in performances that are hurting teams.

“We have had changes to our backline in recent games. Again, it was a whole new backline on Monday so the injuries are hurting us.

“But we are still conceding too many goals so we have to work on that.

“The pleasing thing is that the work we have done in possession is giving us the chance to score goals and win games.

“We now need to work out how we tighten it up and start getting those 1-0s and 2-1s rather than what we have been doing.”