“We were not at the races,” was manager Jimmy Dean’s damning verdict on his team’s 2-0 defeat at Needham Market on Saturday.
The end of the Tulips’ five-match unbeaten run and first goals conceded in more than seven-hours of playing time were compounded on Tuesday when Harborough Town overtook them at the top of the Southern League Premier Central table as the two-horse race heads towards the final furlong.
A 3-0 win at Bishop’s Stortford put Harborough two points clear, and with two games in hand.
“Needham were deserved winners. We were second to everything all game in both boxes,” said Dean.
“We never really got going and I think we had four shots on target. When you’re losing a game, that’s never enough.”
However, Dean said it had not been for the want of trying. “We’ve just not handled it very well. I don’t think there’s one boy in there who doesn’t care, who’s not gutted and devastated by the result. But I can’t say there’s many that’s played well either.”
Dean was forced into a change following the previous week’s sending off of Connor Johnson and he said: “He got a ridiculous red card and it upset something that was working really well. We certainly missed him.”
Against a home side on a run of seven games without defeat, Spalding went down to their first away league defeat since September.
Since then they won eight and drawn one of their nine trips to help them power to the top of the standings.
However, they rarely looked like extending that run and were grateful to goalkeeper Dan Wilkes for a string of early saves as the hosts piled forward.
Early calls for a home penalty were dismissed but they took the lead after 26 minutes when a free-kick was not cleared and Reggie Lambe scored.
Mane Sani came closest to finding the net for the Tulips but his effort brought a top-class save out of goalkeeper James Bradbrook
Luke Ingram was brought down and got up to convert the resulting spot kick on the hour mark and it could have been worse for Spalding when Jake Dye slid in but somehow managed to put the ball wide to miss a golden last minute chance.
“I think it’s only our second game on the grass this year,” said Dean, whose team have been playing catch up on their own artificial pitch, following a delay in its laying.
“We’ve not been very good. We’ve not been at the races. They played the pitch really well and played us really well.
“From our perspective, it was completely disappointing. We get to this stage of the season, and a game that means so much, and we didn’t transfer that on to the pitch. It’s about coming to places like these, good teams, and looking for a reaction.
“We were second-best from start to finish. That doesn’t make us a bad side, we’ve been in good form, but we had to be better than that we did.
“I’m sorry to the fans who travelled because it was nowhere near good enough. That’s being honest; nowhere near good enough, from minute one to minute 90 we were second best.”
Tulips: Wilks, Taroni (Akinba), Olopade, Moore, White, Thompson, Roberts (Bendle), Pugh (Sembie-Ferris), Cybulski (Fowkes), Sani (McCammon), Ceesay. Attendance: 325.
