DEFEAT AT HOME TO QUORN

Needham Market fell to a third home league defeat of the season, dropping a place to fourth after a 3-0 home defeat to Quorn, who leapfrog their hosts.

The result also ended the Marketmen's run of 2 straight league wins, while Quorn extending their winning run to three matches.

Tom Rothery's side were unchanged from Saturday's 1-0 win over Alvechurch, and went close early on as Myles Cowling shot just wide from Kyle Hammond's early low cross.

At the other end though, Quorn took the lead in the 8th minute, as a corner was cleared out to Zak Goodson who rifled home from distance, for his ninth goal of the campaign. 

Needham started to find their rhythm, nice passing play saw Reggie Lambe threaded into space to wrap his shot into Harrison's chest.

Although Needham had the majority of the possession, the visitors doubled their lead against the run of play just before half-time. 

Zhani Burgess capitalised on an error to curl into the bottom corner.

Following the break, Simeon Cobourne skewed wide at close range, although Hammond went agonisingly close to halving the deficit, but smashed just wide.

Appauh stabbed wide after Hammond and Ingram linked up well, as Needham still had the lion share of the play.

Ben Hunter's deflected shot was nervously pushed away by Harrison.

Although Ingram shot narrowly wide, Quorn added a third on 63 minutes, after Simeon Cobourne turned home a low cross at close range.

Needham went close soon after, as a dangerous ball across was turned goal-bound by Appauh but for a goal line clearance.

After Ingram drew a good stop from Harrison to beat behind his free-kick, Appauh again saw a shot turned off the line.

The hosts had the ball in the net late on, Hammond's bicycle kick cannoned back off post, albeit Ingram was flagged offside as he tapped home the rebound. 

Needham Manager Tom Rothery said, "I didn't think we started the game well enough last week. We got away with it and that was the message before the game really. We needed to start well, couldn't allow them to get a leg up and we didn't do that and then I think ultimately, I don't think that's what's cost us but you know that certainly put us on the back foot.

Them being one ahead, I don't know when the goal came but it was reasonably 10 minutes or whatever and it was sloppy from us and then they're a very good team in transition so that then put us on the back foot from the point of view of them trying to hit us on the break which I thought to be fair, we managed it well, we changed the shape. I thought we were well on top after that initial start where we didn't start well but didn't threaten enough and then obviously got absolutely sucker punched for the second goal. A couple of mistakes within that as well to make it 2-0 and then second half again had lots of the ball dominated possession but at the end of the day if you're not going to defend, you can't defend how we've defended today those three moments and you know all three goals are poor and when you do that and then don't and you know you haven't got people in between posts getting tap-ins or scoring tap-ins that they should score then it's going to be very tough to win football games and that's kind of what's happened today really in summary. I said to the lads after you know we've got to understand that possession doesn't mean you're going to win a football game, possession gives you, should give you control in the game but you've then still got to be better in both boxes and then we weren't, simple as that, we weren't good enough in both boxes, we let ourselves down with some basic things that we don't do well enough and it is costing us and it's cost us quite a few games really where actually we have a lot of possession and the other team don't have lots of possession, have a couple of chances, take both of their chances and we don't and it makes it very tough to win football games when you do that but you know one, give them credit, I thought they managed the game really well, they managed the fact that they didn't have a lot of possession but still carried a threat which is credit to them and they also managed the game well from the point of view of how much possession we had up until sort of the last, especially in the second half, obviously we created some really good chances but in the first half we didn't create too much that I can remember if I'm honest so you know credit to them, you know you can see why they're up there and you know we need to keep perspective, we're still up there as well but like I just said to the lads we just got to get, we've got to do things better and it is becoming an issue for us at the moment where I don't know if it's a mentality thing where we feel like just having possession of the ball means we're going to win the game and it doesn't, I understand that and I just don't know if the lads do sometimes. I don't think we've turned up in any of what you'd deem as the big games now so we haven't performed in any of those games so far, definitely not 100%. I think if you look at the home form table we'll still be second or third in the table so look that's the thing with football, it's never too high never too low, yes we should all be annoyed, everyone should be annoyed about the result today, not necessarily all of the performance, clearly there's things that we need to do performance-wise better but you know one result doesn't make you a bad team and one result doesn't make you a good team. Unfortunately for us when we're not quite right for whatever reason we're really not right so you can throw in Bishop's Stortford and you can throw Harborough into that obviously today so you know that's down to me ultimately to understand why that is and rectify that, I don't know. Like I said at the end of the day we're still in the playoff so whilst I am really annoyed and I'm really frustrated with the performance and I'm frustrated with some of the things during the game you have to keep a level head about it because when we win a game we're not the best team in the world and when we lose a game we're not the worst team in the world, it's somewhere in the middle and like I said we've just got to get a better middle ground which clearly we haven't got at the moment because it does feel a little bit feast or famine at the moment with us."

Looking ahead to Tuesday's Suffolk Premier Cup Quarter-Final at Leiston (7:45pm), "Well it's going to be really tough because obviously Leiston at home are fairly good and obviously you can see we can't even name a full squad today so we've got injuries, Joe and Dan won't be back for that, obviously we've got a couple of knocks today so we'll have to assess that, I want to win the County Cup and it is important, obviously Brad's coming today so it'll give opportunities for the lads in the academy and the reserves to step up and that's what we'll have to do, so yeah we'll have to see who's available and who we've got put out the best thing that we can for that game."