Henderson accepts blame as Blues promotion bid falters
Credit: Extratime Team (ETPhotos)
A very disappointed Waterford United manager Stephen Henderson emerged from the home dressing room last Friday night after a twenty minute team meeting wondering whether their promotion changes were still intact.
Brain Gartland and David Freeman gave Monaghan United a 2-0 victory to leave the Blues perilously close to being out of the promotion battle.
Gartland opened the scoring, powering home a free header past Michael Devine, but Henderson was not happy with the time he was given to score.
“Two-thirds of the goals we’ve conceded have been from set-pieces, but tonight was possibly the softest, we’re really disappointed," Henderson said.
“The overall game today was very poor and I’ll take responsibility for that. I tried to freshen things up and I got it wrong, fundamentally I got it wrong. The team selection was wrong, played players in wrong positions so I’ll take responsibility for that.”
Henderson was ‘very disappointed’ that his team were booed from the pitch. “These players have given so much to the club this year," he said. He is hoping to give the supporters a lift with a good away performance next week. “We need something to give the supporters to cheer about, because God knows we haven’t given them much to cheer about over the last few weeks,” the Waterford boss admitted.
Henderson will look to get his squad ready this week for the trip to Limerick on Friday for a Munster derby. “Limerick is the next game and that is the one we have to look forward to and we have to train properly this week. We’ve had a discussion in there to see where we are going to go, so hopefully we’ll come up with a few answers this week and sort it out.”
Henderson still believes that his side still have the belief to get promotion. “Yeah, absolutely. There is the belief but we have to be a hundred times better than what we were tonight.”
“We have some very good players in there, but they are tired players," he said. “People don’t seem to understand the amount of games we’re after playing and the amount of travelling we’re after doing. So that’s why I tried to freshen it up but obviously I made a balls of it. I’ll have to take a good look at myself and see where I went wrong and I’ll need to fix that,” Henderson concluded.
Brain Gartland and David Freeman gave Monaghan United a 2-0 victory to leave the Blues perilously close to being out of the promotion battle.
Gartland opened the scoring, powering home a free header past Michael Devine, but Henderson was not happy with the time he was given to score.
“Two-thirds of the goals we’ve conceded have been from set-pieces, but tonight was possibly the softest, we’re really disappointed," Henderson said.
“The overall game today was very poor and I’ll take responsibility for that. I tried to freshen things up and I got it wrong, fundamentally I got it wrong. The team selection was wrong, played players in wrong positions so I’ll take responsibility for that.”
Henderson was ‘very disappointed’ that his team were booed from the pitch. “These players have given so much to the club this year," he said. He is hoping to give the supporters a lift with a good away performance next week. “We need something to give the supporters to cheer about, because God knows we haven’t given them much to cheer about over the last few weeks,” the Waterford boss admitted.
Henderson will look to get his squad ready this week for the trip to Limerick on Friday for a Munster derby. “Limerick is the next game and that is the one we have to look forward to and we have to train properly this week. We’ve had a discussion in there to see where we are going to go, so hopefully we’ll come up with a few answers this week and sort it out.”
Henderson still believes that his side still have the belief to get promotion. “Yeah, absolutely. There is the belief but we have to be a hundred times better than what we were tonight.”
“We have some very good players in there, but they are tired players," he said. “People don’t seem to understand the amount of games we’re after playing and the amount of travelling we’re after doing. So that’s why I tried to freshen it up but obviously I made a balls of it. I’ll have to take a good look at myself and see where I went wrong and I’ll need to fix that,” Henderson concluded.
About Brendan White
Brendan White is Extratime News Editor and is responsible for the news section of Extratime.ie. Brendan also covers matches in Dublin and Waterford. You can contact Brendan on twitter @whitebrendan. View Full Profile