FC Boro

Mark Roberts has spoken out at the disappointment of missing out on the play-off final after yesterday’s dramatic collapse at Cambridge. Roberts, arguably Boro’s best performer over the two legs, spoke to BBC 3 Counties about the Cambridge game and added that it is imperative for the club to finish the season on a high with a win at Wembley against York in the FA Trophy Final.

“It doesn’t get worse than that in terms of the manner in which we lost. We thought decisions went against us. We’ve seen the goal that they have won with and it is clearly off-side, so everyone is devastated. The game plan seemed to work in the first half, but they dominated the second half. They got the lucky goal with the deflection, then it was a case of trying to hang out. We were disappointed to concede from a set-piece because we obviously worked on defending against them, and obviously the winner they got was very disappointing.” Roberts on defeat to Cambridge

There’s no doubt that yesterday’s events would of hit the whole club as a whole hard. It’s probably the best time for York to be playing Boro, especially after the run of form the team was in at the back-end of last season. The manner of the defeat is a bitter pill for Graham Westley and co to swallow. Losing in any game is hard enough, but when we already had one step in the play-off final after working so hard in the first leg, it makes it that bit harder to recover from. The refereeing, especially in the second leg doesn’t make it any easier.

I think winning on Saturday will now be a bigger achievement because of what has happened over the last few days. The team is down at the moment and GW will need to pick his side up massively ahead of the York game. Yesterday’s game would of taken a lot out of the players physically and mentally and in my opinion York already have the advantage going into the Wembley final. They have had the extra week to prepare, while Boro have played 210 extra minutes of football and have ended up losing in dramatic circumstances.

I’ve got a funny feeling that our season will end up just like Torquay’s did last season. Torquay played their local rivals in the play-offs last season and looked favourites to go through after the first leg, but went out to a resilient Exeter side. A week later, a weary, dejected Torquay were narrowly beaten by Ebbsfleet. It would be a massive disappointment for the same thing to happen to Boro.