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Cheltenham Town Reserves Head Coach Marcus Renzi reflects on the tough loss to Portsmouth Development – “The goals they scored were soft goals, we have to take that into training and work on those silly mistakes”  

Cheltenham Town Reserves are yet to get their season off the ground and after a tough-fought 3-0 loss to Portsmouth Academy, they are still in search for their first points this year.  

Head Coach Marcus Renzi took the reins of the ‘Robiness Reserves’ in the summer and after their loss to Portsmouth Academy this weekend, he now faces a winless first three games to his tenure. 

“I think we played really well in spells, their combination work seemed to come together, especially towards the end of the second half. I would have preferred more combinations throughout the entire game, but it is a learning curve we will take that into training and hopefully work on that and how we’ll improve.” 

It was a three-goal deficit that saw his side fall short of points on Sunday against a severely better-funded team, and after conceding early it was always going to be a tough task building momentum in the game. 

“I think our defence was too separate from our attack, the ‘double pivot’ CDMs didn’t track back enough which put our defence under pressure.

“We got overloaded from there, the goals they scored were really soft but again we have to take that into training and work on those silly mistakes.” 

It was seemingly a game that got away from Cheltenham, but all attention is now on preparing for a tricky match away against Moneyfields Reserves next weekend. The south coast side walked out 16-5 winners when the sides met in the cup earlier in the season, but Renzi is confident his side can flip the script and compete for widely sought-after points in the league.  

“We’ll prepare well I want to work more on the basics, work on the combination of passes, and the overall build-up play.

“Yes we suffered a heavy loss last time out (the previous tie against Moneyfields), but we have got a new goalkeeper since then.

“Last time our captain had to go in goal which doesn’t help because she’s integral to how we play, but on the basis of today, Portsmouth beat them 6-1 , and we’ve improved hugely, so it should be a better game than when we played them earlier in the season.” 

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