Southport will learn and get better, manager Liam Watson admits after Josh Hmami’s late header secured a point against Scarborough Athletic.
The draw extended their unbeaten run to six, winning two, as the Yellows took points off three of their promotion rivals in Brackley Town, King’s Lynn and Jonathan Greening’s side last time out.
Their recent run has seen them slip out of the playoff places by a point but the Southport boss believes that his side can improve.
He told Off The Park: “It’s a great point because it come so late, we certainly didn’t deserve to lose the game and I think the majority at the game thought we deserved to win based on chances alone but it wasn’t to be.
“It’s a bit of a fluke, Tony’s made a great save, it’s ricocheted and hit someone running in, there’s nothing you can do about that but we had several chances throughout the course of the game, we only have ourselves to blame for not being clinical enough but we will learn and get better.
“On the balance of play, our goals column is good, our against is improving drastically. All the games are tight, 1-1 with King’s Lynn, 1-1 with Scarborough, 2-2 with Brackley and they’re the top three teams, 0-0 with Kettering and it would be 0-0 now if we were still playing, [lack of goals] no big deal.
“Is that six or seven games unbeaten in the league? Then you look at the fixtures we’ve had I think it’s a good run.”
Southport’s midweek clash with Blyth Spartans was postponed, as a result they are back at Haig Avenue as they play Boston United in the reverse fixture.
The two sides met on the opening day with Port racing into five-goal lead before the Pilgrims fought back through a Jordan Crawford brace and Lebrun Mbeka.
Despite being one of the favourites at the start of the season, it’s been a difficult start but they have enjoyed a resurgence in recent weeks.
“They’ve still got bags and bags of experienced players, they were tipped to win the league at the start of the season, they’re one of the biggest teams in this league, they’ve got a manager who has won this league, they don’t come much tougher,” said the Port manager, disinterested in the difference in league position.
“We’ve just got to be a little bit more clinical, we scored six against Runcorn Town but we’ve also missed a number of chances, we just need to keep going and the more practice we get, the better you become.
“I’ve gone in with two weeks to go and been five points adrift in the league table and won the league so I’m not really worrying about a point or two,” he added about being outside the playoffs. “I’d always like to think, if you say 70 points gets you in the playoffs, by the time we’ve played 23, if we’re on 35 points we’ll be doing okay.”
Off The Park understands that there is a departure looming at Haig Avenue ahead of the January transfer window opening in January. Whilst it doesn’t affect whether they can sign players, Football League clubs can submit offers for players and with a number of scouts in attendance in recent weeks, Watson is expecting a busy month.
He revealed: “We’ve accepted an offer, now it’s up to them but it’s not as straightforward as normal with visas and stuff like that.
“No, we’ve got enough at the club it might be a case of promoting one of the younger players who are out on loan,” said on bringing in reinforcements as a result of the exit.
“January doesn’t affect us when it comes to signing, only when it comes to selling, in an ideal world it would be a quiet January but I’ve got a hunch it won’t be. We’ve had a number of Football League scouts at our last few games, it normally isn’t coincidental.”
[Featured image: Julia Urwin – Southport FC]
