He promised a ‘tough week of training’ and hinted that there was now an opportunity for players on the fringes of the side to earn themselves more chances of representing the Green Lions, such was his dismay at the performance.
‘We should have been better and been more ruthless,’ said Vance after a post-match debrief with players and staff.
‘I was almost asleep first half because it was so dull. Charlton [Gauvain] stepped up at the right time and scored a good goal, but I said at half-time that I didn’t think it was going to be enough and “you need to be better” and we weren’t.’
This interval assessment came despite Gauvain’s goal giving the hosts a 1-0 half-time lead. The westerly wind was behind Guernsey backs in that first period, gusting to 45mph, and the prospect of Pagham taking advantage in the second half meant there was as little optimism around the ground as there was in the home dressing room.
Pagham equalised within five minutes of the restart but some hope was then restored with a good team goal scored by Will Fazakerley.
‘The goal we scored in the second half is what we should have done in the first half, which is what we did last week,’ said Vance.
‘It’s how we play. To do that you need to do the hard yards – the work ethic. That’s our plan and we didn’t do that. And we also didn’t play the way we needed to play in these conditions – get it wide, play short, sharp passes, get ourselves in areas where we can hurt them, like we’ve been working on. All we did was smash balls forward in conditions like that, which was pointless.’
Three goals in the last 12 minutes saw Pagham take the points and rise to fourth, three places and two points ahead of Guernsey.
Read a full match report in Monday’s Guernsey Press
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