New shape, new belief: Maidenhead's tactical masterclass stuns leaders Hornchurch

Josh Popoola, who has excelled for the Magpies of late.

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It would be no exaggeration to say that Maidenhead United looked like the table topping side in Saturday’s fully deserved 2-0 win over the team currently at the summit, Hornchurch.

From the first whistle to the last, they dominated their opponents in just about every facet of the game.

Hornchurch arrived at York Road three points clear at the top of the National League South, having swept past Hemel Hempstead Town with a 4-0 away win in mid-week, but they were stifled by Maidenhead’s shape and structure and generally confident play throughout on Saturday.

It was the same for the Magpies away to Salisbury a couple of weeks ago, while Chippenham Town had no answer to the questions posed by Ryan Peters and Aaron O’Brien’s side last weekend.

The players are largely the same, but the system, the shape and the performances are lightyears ahead of what they were producing just a few weeks ago when the side lost seven matches in a dispiriting winless run that ultimately led to Alan Devonshire stepping down.

It’s unclear at this stage if Dev’s resignation has released the shackles on the players, or whether the new shape he implemented for the games against Dagenham, Salisbury and Chippenham Town have simply transformed their fortunes. But whatever the case, if they keep producing this level of performance over the remainder of the campaign, they’ll be in the promotion picture for sure.

“To do anything in any league, you’ve got to be defensively solid, and we’ve spoken about pressing the ball,” said interim assistant boss Aaron O’Brien.

“You can’t always win it high up, sometimes you’ve got to sit in and keep your shape. Today we did that well, we picked and chose when to press and kept our shape.

“They had one probably good chance where our player has cleared it off the line but apart from that, they didn’t have any other good chances in my opinion.

“We need to win as many games as possible. But we’ve been on a good run before where we won six games in a row and then we went on a bad run, so we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen. There’s going to be a game soon where it doesn’t happen for us, and we’re going to have to make sure we’re resilient and can go again and get back onto some good form.

“Winning matches breeds confidence, keeping clean sheet breeds confidence and hopefully that will continue into the Berks and Bucks on Tuesday and then again into Hampton & Richmond on Saturday. The boys are full of confidence, and we’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve not changed much because we haven’t needed to. But we’re delighted with how it’s gone.”

The Magpies should have won by more than two goals on Saturday with the chances they carved out in both halves. Will de Havilland’s flicked header from a Josh Popoola corner gave them the deserved lead midway through the half and substitute Jayden Mitchell-Lawson finished off Hornchurch’s hopes with a brilliant second in stoppage time. In between those goals they should have had one or two more, with Hornchurch keeper Arthur Nasta pulling off a string of fine saves and the Magpies also missing one or two other very presentable opportunities.

Plane sailing for Will de Havilland who opened the scoring yesterday at York Road ✈️ pic.twitter.com/0kvy7KGiQo

— Maidenhead United (@MUFCYorkRoad) December 7, 2025

“First of all I would say the boys were excellent today,” added O’Brien.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better performance than that. As you say, we probably could have won by more goals. We had to dig in deep early on.

“They were putting balls into our box, and they had a bit of spell of possession, but I thought we dug in and came through that spell with flying colours.

“The substitutes also came on and impacted the game. Jayden came on and scored the second, but Peyo and I are delighted. We’ve managed to build on our previous two games and keep a clean sheet. We wanted to keep our units together and win those battles in midfield, winning those second balls and getting into your opponent’s half. We probably could have had two or three more goals. Their keeper has made some great saves and there were some last-ditch blocks and maybe some poor finishing as well.

“That battle in midfield was always going to be key, and they changed shape very quickly because it wasn’t working for them. It caused us a new problem, but the boys dealt with it and managed to stick to the plan, so it worked.

“He’s (Popoola) a great player for us now. He can go left or right and make things happen. I don’t want to give too much away about what we’re doing, but JP can turn up in those wide areas and give us an overload. Teams also try to double up on him, and we can utilise the space that creates. Our players are intelligent enough to pick up on that space and move into those areas and it showed today.”