Booth has his say

Coach David Booth getting his point across in a training session

Phnom Penh Crown's head coach David Booth hasn't been too accustomed to defeats during his tenure with the club. This afternoon, he suffered his second one in just three games at the start of the new C-League campaign. This is what he had to say at the final whistle after watching his team lose 1-2 to NagaCorp.

"I thought we played well until we scored. We started well, stopped them from playing, we closed them down well but as soon as we scored, the game seemed to change and we stopped working as hard as we did. We allowed them to come back into the game. At half-time, we talked about starting the 2nd half the same way we'd started the game but we were fast asleep for the first minute for the goal. No excuse for that, just bad marking. Until we mark and start playing the way we should play, we are going to have these problems. As coaches, we can only work with them - we cannot play the game for them."

"I thought defensively, we were very naive today, not doing the right things at the right times. The last 20 minutes we changed and to be fair Naga had a real problem. We had chances, we had good pressure, we got behind them, we got the ball to the strikers, the ball into the box and we had some good chances but unfortunately nothing came of it. If we weren't making chances then that would be a problem. We should've scored more today to be fair, but we suffered because we didn't defend well enough in the 1st minute after half time. We suffered and it should be a lesson learned."

"Our team is different from last season. In all honesty, it's probably not as strong. We have to look at the way we brought players into the club, what choices did we have, and what did we get from those choices. It was always going to be a little difficult this year. But we have to grin and bear it and try to work through it. All games this season are going to be hard until we get together, and work together to put things right. At the moment we are very haphazard in the way that we pass the ball and how we defend and mark players. For the last two days in training, we worked on defensive situations - so there's no excuse really for the 2nd goal today."