Matt Clarke’s Redditch United carry on their quest for promotion with a slender win over relegation threatened Berkhamsted.
The United boss wasn’t overly pleased with the performance but of course is delighted with the three points at the Valley.
“There are no easy games, they’re bottom and they’re fighting for their lives and they gave a really good account of themselves. We were not at our best today.”
Clarke has had to deal with a lot of injuries to his squad which makes his side’s charge to promotion even more impressive.
“Weve done okay today, we’ve been carrying a lot of injuries over the last three weeks so the team has been a little disjointed.
“When you have players like your captain out and Callum Flanagan out, plus Brad Burton out. We are missing a lot of players but we’ve found a way like today.
“It gives us 60 points after 30 games which is an outstanding achievement.”
The former West Bromwich Albion player admits that they got the job done even though it was pretty ugly at times against the bottom side.
“We’ve said before that we must have 60 points by 5 o’clock and that’s what we have to do by any means. Full credit to Berkhamsted. They play a certain way and make it difficult for teams and are very physical and they made it really scrappy and niggly.
“My teams (players) back then wouldn’t be able to withstand that but we stud up to the challenge and the physical aspect and we always felt we had a bit of quality at times to go on and get the win.”
On the match winning penalty Clarke wanted to give Johnny Johnston the opportunity having awarded the former Blackpool academy player a rare start.
“Theres no complaints from them about the penalty. I always want to give it to the strikers really and Alex has had two and missed one, but JJ wanted it and I gave him the opportunity and he took it and it was a decent finish.”
Redditch have now won five of their last six games and are well on their way to challenge Needham Market who also scrapped to a 2-1 win over fellow relegation strugglers Long Eaton.
“We are riding a crest of a wave because our form and results have been good. We’d obviously be really disappointed now if we don’t get play-offs. We’ve got to be better than we was today to pick up points.”
Despite the good result today, there is still a long way to go with another 12 games to go in order to at least seal a top five finish which would seal the play-offs.
Needham Market are still top and have three extra games in hand and are now two points clear at the top of the league.
