Andy Woodman praises Bromley’s defensive improvements after win at Crewe

Andy Woodman praised Bromley’s defensive improvements as they secured their first win since the end of August with a narrow 1-0 League Two victory away to Crewe.

The Ravens had conceded seven goals in their three previous outings, so their clean sheet in their hard-fought success at the Mornflake Stadium delighted their manager.

Michael Cheek hit the game’s only goal early in the second half; a clinical finish which took the striker’s tally for the season to six and made up for his poor miss at the start of the game.

Woodman said: “I am more chuffed to get a clean sheet.

“We needed to stop conceding goals like we have of late and we’ve addressed that, but it’s only one game so we’ve got to make sure we use that as a building block to what we want to achieve.

“It was back to basics as we’ve had a tricky couple of days with a few injuries and illness, as well as international duty.

“We couldn’t do any work on it until this morning when we named the team and did the video stuff.

“And fair play to the boys as they took it on board and executed the game plan perfectly. They got their rewards as we’ve had weeks when we’ve played much better than that and we’ve not had our rewards.

“Crewe are a very good team, but we stuck to our task and weathered the early storm as we know they get their goals in the first 30 minutes.

“We made some good blocks and after that we were disciplined in what we did and reduced them to very little.”

Wins against Notts County and Harrogate had lifted Crewe into the top five, but their glaring lack of consistency was amplified by the disparity between their first-half showing and that after the break.

In the first 45, Jack Lankester went close twice as the Railwaymen piled on the pressure.

But Crewe’s response to Cheek’s goal was poor and Woodman’s side were only opened up once late in the game when substitute Dion Rankine flew in but missed connecting with a delivery across goal.

After tamely steering a third-minute effort into the arms of Crewe goalkeeper Tom Booth, Cheek made no mistake when he was given another sight of goal, finding the bottom corner after the hosts failed to deal with Jude Arthurs’ ball in the 52nd-minute for what proved to be game’s decisive moment.

Crewe boss Lee Bell lamented his side’s lack of consistency.

“It was bitterly disappointing and we have now lost Josh March to a hamstring injury. He could be missing for a while,” said Bell.

“Bromley are a difficult team to play and it is very hard to get a foothold, but we lacked the quality in the final third. We started the game really well and we had two good opportunities.

“They hit a lot of long balls towards the box and it was a lapse in concentration for the goal when we were all over the place really.

“We knew what their threat was going to be, but we had enough quality on the pitch.

“It’s about us controlling our emotions from playing so well on Monday (at Harrogate) to this, and having an understanding of how it happened.”