Story by Kevin Luff - 26th March 2006
Goals are the main problem for Hodgson
Darlington fell to their thirteenth defeat of the season at Barnet of Saturday to the frustration of manager David Hodgson. Time is creeping to a close on this season and it is clear where improvement is required in the eyes of the management. The result at Underhill was made worse by the fact that Tresor Kandol scored the winning goal. The forward had a loan spell at Darlington earlier in the season but was unable to settle in the North East and returned down South and eventually signed for Barnet.
Kandol's goal on eighty minutes could have easily come from the worst Hollywood hack as it was all too predictable. Darlington boss David Hodgson admitted that once netted the best Quakers could hope to achieve in this match was a point as goals have been virtually impossible to find of late. Just one goal in the last five games sums up the problem facing Hodgson and the football club perfectly.
"It had to be him didn't it? He hasn't played for three weeks but comes up and scores a header. Defensively it was wrong. Sam (Russell) unfortunately through a ball out blind to Joe (Kendrick) and he has nowhere to go and it skids off the surface. All of a sudden within ten seconds they have it in the back of the net," said Hodgson. "We got what we deserved for that type of stupid error. Once they've scored we are not going to score two goals. I can't see us scoring two goals so all we were going to muster out of this game was a potential point and nothing more in all due respect."
"Once they've scored we are not going to score two goals"
Dave Hodgson on Quakers World
The first half was a fairly dour affair with Barnet sitting back and operating defensively and the final third of the field becoming far to congested for any sort of quality to take place. However the game opened up in the second half and Quakers did have chances to get something but their lack of cutting edge is all too apparent.
"We had enough of the ball in the second half in areas of the box to win it. But you are not going to win it if you don't score goals," said Hodgson. "It is as simple as that. We can sit here and talk until they put all those lights off, all those curtains get drawn in the houses in front of us and everyone goes to bed. It is irrelevant. It is only down to someone scoring goals. The sad thing as well is we can't play anymore."
After Kandol's headed goal Quakers had a brilliant chance to restore parity. Jermal Johnson forced Flitney into a good low save but the ball broke to Atieno who hit his shot straight at the Barnet keeper. Sodje then followed up but instead of dinking the ball over the grounded keeper he also fired straight at Flitney who clawed the ball behind for a corner kick.
"The keeper was on the ground. We had three shots and all of them went into the keeper's arms. He has been on the ground. No one had the knowledge to just dink it over him. If you score the goal it might give you a lift and you might get another one. Its just common sense to lift it over him. You can't put it through him," said a frustrated Hodgson.
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