Romeo rues 'key moments' as Kingfishers fall to back to back defeats

Thatcham Town’s Yashwa Romeo felt his side’s failure to capitalise on “key moments” cost them in their 2-0 defeat at home to Basingstoke Town on Easter Monday.

It marked the culmination of a miserable bank holiday weekend for the Kingfishers, who lost 3-1 at Chipstead on Saturday and slipped to 13th in the Isthmian League South Central table.

Romeo’s charges were much-improved from the loss at Chipstead for the visit of promotion contenders Basingstoke but missed chances and defensive mistakes proved fatal against the league’s second placed side in front of a bumper crowd of 478.

"We huffed and puffed a lot," Romeo said.

"We've got to start grabbing key moments and we just didn't manage to do it.

"Basingstoke were the better side in possession but that's to be expected and I think in terms of chances, we maybe slightly edged it.

"There weren't a lot of chances but we had three very good moments and didn't put any of them away.

"Mo (Ceesay) goes through and has an effort cleared off the line and we hit the crossbar after half time

"We made a silly defensive mistake and got punished, that's probably the difference between the sides.

"We felt like we had a definite penalty turned down for handball, the referee was the wrong side of it but the linesman was staring right at it.

"I'm proud of the performance and proud of the boys, we just needed that little bit more and we didn't quite have it."