Player-boss Ben Greenhalgh believes a pre-match injury to Margate winger Gabriel Duo badly impacted their game-plan ahead of their defeat to Sevenoaks on Saturday.
Their 15-game unbeaten Isthmian South East run ended as they were beaten 2-1 at home by their west Kent visitors.
On a cold and foggy afternoon, it was a missed opportunity for third-placed Margate to put pressure on those above them, with the loss also a first for Greenhalgh’s side in the league at Hartsdown Park this campaign.
Gate gave a debut to young Gillingham loanee Josh Bayliss from the start – but only after young prospect Duo had pulled out.
“We just didn’t have the energy,” said Greenhalgh. “Brandon Davey was not available at the last minute – just the illness is still getting to him – and he’s someone that will play through anything.
“Even last weekend (in a 1-1 draw with Merstham), he had to come off after about 20 minutes because he gave it a go.
“Then, I’ve never seen it happen before but, when we were jogging out to the pitch to start the game, Gabriel Duo has possibly done his Achilles. Everyone has heard a crunch!
Report: Margate 1-2 Sevenoaks
“Mentally, that puts you in a different frame of mind and then you have to change the team completely.
“We brought in Josh Bayliss, who did really well. But he’s new to us and new to our shape.
“We didn’t want to change shape after working on something for the whole of our pre-match preparations and talking about it on Thursday. In hindsight, we probably didn’t look after Josh well enough because it was a tough position for him to come in and play.
“He did well – it was just the rest of the players didn’t do well enough.”
While players sustaining injuries in the warm-up ahead of a game is not unusual, injuries in the moments immediately before kick-off are less common.
Greenhalgh said: “We were a minute from kick-off.
“Harry [Hudson, Margate’s captain] is doing the toss with the referee and we were doing some ‘sharp feet’ in the corner and we just heard it. It’s tough on Gabs.
“Him and Brandon would have made a difference because they have been brilliant this season and they have shown a lot of energy.
“The harsh reality is we didn’t replace their energy, which is something we have build our philosophy on.”
And Greenhalgh accepted Duo’s injury probably had a psychological impact on the home players – including himself!
He said: “Mentally, it probably did get to a few people – even myself a little bit.
“You change the way you are playing but your thoughts are more with Gabs.
“He’s a young lad who has been brilliant for us when he’s played, very effective and he shows so much energy.
“You could see the distress on his face because he knew something serious had happened. It was all a bit odd.
“We were trying to get another centre midfielder on the bench – but it had all happened too late because it’s happened virtually on kick-off.”
Substitute Jordan Ababio got Margate a late consolation goal, albeit that came with virtually the last kick.
On Gate’s loss, only their second in the league all season, Greenhalgh reflected: “It’s the worst we have been. We didn’t show enough quality and we didn’t show enough energy.
“That goes completely against what our priorities have been and what our philosophy was. It was a really off day – and we have been punished for it.
“There have been moments this year where we’ve had off moments, off periods for 20 or 30 minutes, but that was 80 minutes where we weren’t good enough. We cannot accept that so it cannot happen again.
“If it does happen again, we need to look at ourselves as a management staff and we need to look at the boys in terms of why we’ve had that sort of blip.”
But Greenhalgh conceded he felt such a display had been coming as Margate battled against illness and injury problems throughout the hectic festive period.
“We felt it coming a little bit,” said the player-manager, who had No.1 Tom Wray playing for the first time since Boxing Day.
“The performance against Merstham was poor. We should have seen the game out, even though we weren’t quite at it.
“But it feels like it probably has been coming.
“With a lot of injuries and illnesses, there was always going to be a time we would get a bit beaten up – and we did get beaten up today. It’s disappointing that it has happened but, now, we need to recover from it.
“We need to accept it wasn’t good enough, we have let people down and we just need to make sure we go again in our next game.”
Gate will aim to bounce back when they host Sittingbourne in an eagerly-awaited top-three fixture at Hartsdown Park on Tuesday.
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