Flemming Pedersen felt that some of his players thought they had already won as Crewe Alexandra scored twice in the final 20 minutes to grab a point from Monday’s U21 Professional Development League Two match at Griffin Park. Jan Holldack scored twice either side of a Bradley Clayton strike to put The Bees in command with 20 minutes to play. However The Railwaymen netted twice from set-pieces late on to deny Pedersen’s side the three points in their final home match of the season.
Speaking to Bees Player after the match Pedersen said, “Crewe came better into the game after ten or 15 minutes but I still thought that we were in control. It was very deserved that we 2-1 up after the first-half. In the second-half we took control again and then scored to make it 3-1. We were talking after the game that going to 3-1 maybe meant some of our players felt that they had already won. You never know in football because everything can happen. This is not the first-time that we have been 3-1 up so we have to improve there and play more maturely.”
Flemming was equally frustrated by the manner in which his side conceded the late goals as, once again, set-pieces were The Bees’ downfall. The experienced Danish coach said that his side did a lot right defensively but were punished for a couple of simple mistakes.
“We attack together and we defend together,” said Flemming. “There was a lot of good defending in our game, especially in our counter-pressure, but we don’t like to see the last two goals for Crewe Alexandra: they were two set-pieces. The first was a diagonal free-kick where we dropped too deep and we didn’t remember our tasks from the corner when they scored to make it 3-3. That was disappointing because overall, like in most of the games, we were the better team.”
First-year scholar Josh Bohui was at the heart of The Bees attacking efforts and ended up with a hat-trick of assists. All three goals came following good passages of play down the left-hand side with Bohui cutting the ball back for an on-rushing attacker and Flemming was delighted to see the work that had been put in on the training ground bearing fruit on the pitch.
“You could see with the three goals what we have been working on in training,” said Flemming. “The second goal was a nice build-up, good counter-pressing to get the ball and win it back, and a cutback. There was also a good cutback from Josh Bohui from the first goal too. We wanted to penetrate the inside pockets and we did that in the first-half where we played through their midfield.”
Bees Player subscribers can watch the full interview with Flemming below