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By Joe Harbert
Ashford United forward Aaron Condon says creating momentum again is vital if the team are to maintain their promotion ambitions this season.
The former Hastings striker, who netted his second goal for the club in Saturday’s FA Trophy defeat to Barton Rovers, believes United are continuing to play exciting football, despite hitting a dry spell in results.
“Saturday was hard to take because we didn’t play badly, we created chances and had the majority of possession,” Condon said.
“We battled and fought but when you concede straight after half-time, it can take a lot of the momentum away – this is momentum that we work hard to create in the first place, and as a team we need to improve on that.”
The weekend’s loss was the team’s third in a row and fourth in seven games, and it means they have now kept just one clean sheet in their last 11 matches – an area Condon says the team is focused on improving.
“Unfortunately at the moment we aren’t being clinical enough in both boxes, but we are working so hard to create chances for ourselves despite giving sloppy chances away,” he said.
“All teams and players can go through a dry spell when it comes to goals, but when this happens you need to be harder to beat, and recently we aren’t outscoring teams so we need to tighten up.
“But I have no doubt that we have the quality in our changing room. We know it’s coming down to fine margins, but at this level, that can be the difference between winning and losing.”
The 29-year-old insists that United’s league aims can still be reached this campaign, providing they work hard to find some consistency.
He explained: “The ambition is to still get promoted and whether that comes from automatic promotion or via the play-offs, we just need to ensure we are in the mix at all times.
“We have games in hand but that doesn’t count for anything. We need to turn those games into points and we do that by working hard and persevering, not rolling over and fading away.
“We are an exciting team to watch because we create a lot of chances and play good football, so we just need to be more consistent with our performances.”
He continued: “If Tommy (Warrilow, Ashford manager) also feels he needs to make some transfers then it’s his call – those same players are still responsible for the run at the start of the season when they won five league games in a row.”
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