Although frustrated, Michael Garcia says he is proud of the way his players have conducted themselves throughout what has been a tough run of results. Inglewood United came into July on the back of a five-game winning streak, however, that momentum has dropped away over the past month with four straight losses dropping the side down the competition standings.

“Despite my frustration and disappointment, I’m extremely proud of the players,” Garcia commented. “The brand of football the boys are playing is good and I cannot fault the way they continue to try to apply the behaviours we are preaching to them … I just feel bad that they’re not seeing any rewards for it.”

“I believe though, long-term, if they continue to apply themselves and these behaviours with the right intensity they will get the results they deserve and take the club forward. As hard as it’s been, these are the lessons we need to learn to get us to the next level, which is to be alongside the top two teams in the National Premier Leagues.”

Garcia concedes the teams’ inability to finish their opportunities has played its part on in losing four games on the bounce. “It’s hard to pinpoint the reasons behind that,” he said. “We work on our finishing every night at training and as a coaching group we are constantly talking about how we can rectify it.”

It’s not just been in the front third that Inglewood has struggled of late, the team shipping 13 goals in just four weeks. “Generally the backline has been fairly well disciplined,” commented Garcia. “But lately we have been getting punished by our opponents for the few errors we do make, which serves as a lesson for us to learn from.”

“It has been disappointing to be playing so well, yet not scoring goals and conceding the amount we have at this stage in our evolution as a team. We will be working very hard over the next few weeks to ensure we fix things. We all believe in the way we’re playing and will fine tune with the aim of improvement.”