Daryl McMahon ended a trying week in the best possible way with a 4-1 win in front of home fans and he was pleased with the manner in which his 3-5-2 setup gave Fleet an attacking edge.
“We’ve worked on [that formation] in pre-season and the players enjoy playing in it,” McMahon told Charles Webster for BBC Radio Kent. “It gives the right players the right freedom in the right areas and it worked well today. I put the Sutton game in pre-season as they were champions and we were second and it was good for me to look at my new team in the shape I wanted to play in against them. But I couldn’t do it because we had Winfield out, we had Phillips out so it ended up being a dead rubber of a friendly for me.”
Having finally got the team the way he wanted it today, McMahon faces losing one of his back three when Dave Winfield is suspended next week, but he was adamant getting the right players on the pitch is key to Fleet’s future fortunes. “Like I said, it’s just getting the people on to the pitch. I’m confident once we get our team out and get on a roll of having the same eight, nine or ten players every week you’ll see the best of us.
“I’ve made the conscious decision to leave people out at certain times when they have been struggling. I have the benefit of seeing them in training so they might be telling me they’re over an injury but I can see they’re not so I need to give them the right recovery time.”
And the Fleet boss reserved praise for Jack Powell, who took his season’s tally to four and was a constant threat from set pieces and open play. “He can go as far as he wants in football,” McMahon said. “It’s just about him now getting some games under his belt. He’s a young player at 21 and in terms of experience. I think he’s only played about 20 games in his career in terms of first-team games where things matter. He shows glimpses of quality way above this level and as the season goes on he’ll get better and better.”
Fleet travel to Bishop’s Stortford on Tuesday where Winfield will sit out match one of his three-game suspension but McMahon will address that in training on Monday and seek to build on this win.
“As long as we can keep showing the form and the endeavour, I think people can see where we want to go and we’ll strive to get there.”
Listen to the full interview with Charles Webster below.
https://soundcloud.com/eufcofficial/daryl-after-wealdstone