Marlow's 'soft underbelly' is exposed by league leaders Leighton Town

Flavio Gyawu-Kyem scored a great equaliser for Marlow. Photo: Marlow FC

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Marlow continue to lounge in the lower half of the Southern League Central Division standings after the Blues were routed 5-1 at home by leaders Leighton Town on Saturday.

On the face of it the result isn’t that surprising, given the respective positions of the two teams. But manager Mark Bartley would have hoped – and expected – his side to be much more competitive on their own patch.

Especially with the side having been in a decent run of form prior to this second half collapse, having beaten Northwood and Rayners Lane in successive games.

To be fair to the hosts, they were for the first 45 minutes. A goal from Flavio Gyawu-Kyem (17') cancelled out Sam Mcclelland’s second minute strike.

But Marlow’s challenge collapsed in the second half after Kyal Williams had restored Leighton’s lead in the 49th minute. Pushing to get something from the game, the Blues then left themselves open to further punishment. Leo Farruch scored the visitors’ third in the 66th minute, BJ Christie made it 4-1 in the 73rd and Godlove Oppong completed the scoring in the 82nd minute.

Speaking with club media afterwards, Bartley said: “First half I thought we were very good. We more than held our own and we were probably a little bit disappointed going in level. We thought we should have been in front, but we were worth the position at that time.

“Second half we started ok and got ourselves forward. It was debatable whether we should have had a pen. And it’s amazing how often you think you should get something at one end and then they go down the other end and score.

“I think what it showed after that is we still have this soft underbelly that’s tainted us for most of the season. I said to the players in there, 'I know we’re a young side, but we have to be more resilient in these moments’. When something goes against us, the next thing we know we’re 2-1 or 3-1 down. We don’t seem to have that resilience, but we need to find it. You can talk about us being a young team but that only goes for so long.

“It’s disappointing because the first half performance showed the level we can be at. We’ve almost gone back to old habits. We got what we deserved but we need to be much better.

“Flavio’s finish was a great finish, a great goal, but unfortunately, you get to the end of the game, and it doesn’t mean too much. It would have been nice for that to have given us a springboard to getting all three points, but it didn’t.”

Marlow in 16th are likely to have enough points in the bank to avoid being drawn into the division’s relegation scrap, but they’ll hope to learn lessons from this transitional season.

Marlow are back in action at 12th placed Welwyn Garden City on Saturday.